January 9, 2000

To: Members of the State Board of Education

From: Susan Tave Zelman - Superintendent of Public Instruction

Re: January Report

In this report, I will provide information and examples of progress in three major areas of the Department's Strategic Plan. First, we are moving forward with new Standards for Ohio Schools and the initial concepts will be shared with you during the State Board retreat. Second, a strategic plan for the Center for the Teaching Profession, with Centerwide goals for high performance, has been written. Third, a summary is provided of the technical assistance efforts for the districts which will be designated as academic emergency or academic watch in February 2000. This report also provides progress made on other areas of the Superintendent's goals and objectives. The draft "Standards for Ohio Schools" and the report on the Center for the Teaching Profession are appended to this report.

Department staff met with the researchers from Indiana University and Pennsylvania State University in late December for an update on the descriptive phase of the project. A second meeting was held January 6, which included the consultants from Cleveland State University, as well as from Indiana University. The meeting focused on ensuring that the components of the project mesh together for a coordinated final product.

2. Strengthening Academic Performance

Last month, I shared revisions of the two brochures: "Improving Ohio Schools, the Road Ahead" about the Department's Strategic Plan and its future work; and "Reading--What's Expected" which is a guide for parents about the fourth-grade reading guarantee. The Road Ahead brochure is currently being printed and will be available for distribution after mid-January. The reading brochure, and the video related to the reading guarantee, are under revision and will be completed after discussions with focus groups.

Work continues on the draft Common Expectations of the Joint Council of the State Board and Board of Regents. A planning team consisting of selected staff from the Department and the Board of Regents is meeting twice monthly to move this work forward.

Five of the six writing teams have agreed that the current draft of Common Expectations are ready to be sent for review and comment by national experts. The English language arts team will meet in mid-January to reach agreement on any changes needed before all the draft lists are distributed for review.

I have invited the Ohio Coalition of Educational Organizations to join the Department and Board of Regents in planning the public engagement process for the common expectations. Concurrently, Department staff are working with the Board of Regents staff and communications consultants to package the materials for presentation to the various audiences from whom we will seek feedback.

Committees of secondary and postsecondary educators and other stakeholders met throughout November and December 1999 to draft lists of competencies that will be assessed by the revised Twelfth-Grade Proficiency Tests, which will be administered first to the Class of 2002. Copies of these lists will be sent in January 2000 to all public and chartered nonpublic high schools as well as to other groups of interested stakeholders. Each list of 12th grade test competencies is intended to reflect both the objectives found in the state model competency-based education program and the current draft Common Expectations for that curriculum area. Each list has also been aligned with the corresponding list of competencies approved earlier for the new High School Graduation Qualifying Exams.

During the January Board retreat, I will share with you the attached initial concepts for the new Standards for Ohio Schools which are based on the Baldrige management criteria. As Dr. Roger Trent and a staff team began work on the standards, it became clear that the Baldrige-based framework was part of a larger system. Staff has labeled this larger system, A System for High-Performing Schools, which consists of at least three components:

• System Performance Standards (as expressed by the seven Baldrige Criteria)
• Content Standards (probably best expressed by the "Common Expectations" document now being developed)
• Monitoring Standards (probably would include methods of assessment and evaluation as well as the requirements for being a school)

At this stage we believe that all three of these components must work together in order for the larger system to function effectively. One without the others will not produce the desired aim of the larger system, which is to create high-performing schools in Ohio.

The initial concepts for the standards were developed after staff met with about 35 superintendents. Staff then surveyed the superintendents for their input on several indicators proposed for the Baldrige-based standards and requirements for schools to demonstrate high performance.

Over the next six months, I will bring you additional concepts related to the new standards. In February, we will present ideas about the definition of a school and other terms used in the standards. By July 2000, we anticipate that a final draft of new standards will be shared with you.

(d) Technical Assistance

Based on the data finalized in December 1999, the Department has identified 200 school districts that will be designated as Academic Emergency or Academic Watch in February 2000, with the release of the Local Report Cards. Of these 200

districts, 69 will be designated as Academic Emergency and 131 as Academic Watch.

Even before the data was finalized, the Department began working with Educational Service Centers and other entities to provide technical assistance to these 200 districts. Thirty-five Educational Service Centers received grants from the Department to provide Technical Support Coordinators to work with each district. In addition, five Department staff members are working with some of the districts. All 200 districts now have a Technical Support Coordinator assigned to work with the district for a minimum of four hours per week. Training in the areas of performance consulting, continuous improvement planning, and data analysis has been provided to these Technical Support Coordinators.

In collaboration with the Ohio SchoolNet office, the Department has developed an interactive Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) that districts can use as they develop their continuous improvement plans. The interactive CIP tool is a template with questions to guide districts through the process of developing a plan that meets all state requirements.

Other resources that have been developed to assist districts include the following:

- Revised Continuous Improvement Planning Reference Guide, which now includes all requirements in both statute and rule;

- Series of grade-level booklets that bring together all the learner outcomes from the state models into a single document for that grade level;

- Series of self-assessment tools for district use in analyzing their current status and performance;

- Performance Accountability Toolkit for districts to use in working with the media and the community.

The Department is also providing a series of training sessions for staff of the 200 designated districts. The following sessions are currently in progress.

- Continuous Improvement Planning - This two-day workshop is being offered in 19 sessions across the state. To date, five sessions have been held, with a total of 150 participants. The sessions continue through March 15, 2000, and registrations for those sessions indicate that the maximum capacity of 40 participants per session will likely be achieved. Feedback from the sessions has been positive, including positive comments on the presenters, the materials, and the focus of the session.

- Data Training Institute - This three-day hands-on workshop provides an opportunity for district personnel to work with their own data and learn a methodology for analyzing their data in a variety of ways. The session is held in a computer laboratory at Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center. Six sessions have been held, with approximately 100 total participants. The workshop will continue to be offered through May 2000, and registration for the sessions through March are nearly full. Feedback from participants has been very positive, with 96% indicating they "strongly agree" that the skills learned at the institute will be useful to their schools.

In addition, plans are under way for curriculum alignment workshops at the end of January and the beginning of February. These sessions will focus on aligning the district curriculum with the learner outcomes on the proficiency test, and is being offered in collaboration with the Title I regional facilitators.

Finally, Technical Assistance Coordination Teams have been established in each of the 12 regions of the state. These teams convene regularly to discuss the progress of the Academic Emergency and Academic Watch districts in the region, and to share resources, ideas, and services across districts in order to serve all the designated districts effectively and efficiently.

During this State Board meeting, I will be sharing with you information on the six-months' status report that Deputy Superintendent Roger Nehls, selected staff, and I will present on January 13, 2000, to the Blue Ribbon panel which recommended that KPMG be selected to perform the management study of the Department. The report and recommendations of KPMG were presented to the State Board this past July.

The ten major short-term implementation activities and status highlights are:

1. Complete strategic plan--Multiple iterations of draft plans resulted in a one-page Strategic Plan that has been accepted by the State Board and distributed widely.

2. Lead development of a statewide plan for education--The Department's Strategic Plan is the basis for a statewide plan which is under development with our partners in the Baldrige in Education Initiative. (See page 8 of this report.)

3. Implement an improved program management process--This goal is being met through management training and program identification (with performance measures) in the biennial budget process.

4. Implement a customer management plan--Specific customer bases have been identified and customer needs and expectations have been established with respect to accessibility, response and follow-through. An example is the Department's call center and the 1-877-644-6338 number for the agency.

5. Implement improved human resources management processes-- A Deputy Superintendent was hired to manage daily operations and provide policy guidance, and a Chief of Staff was hired to manage the Superintendent's office and coordinate the management of the Superintendent's priorities. Staff development has been ongoing through regular meetings and ODE University forums. The full complement of the Superintendent's senior management team will be in place after the January Board meeting.

6. Fully implement and communicate the CIO concept within the Department--The department's Chief Information Office has completed his information technology (I/T) reorganization plans, which will be shared with I/T staff on January 12.

7. Develop and implement a change management plan--A new organizational structure has been developed for the Department and the change in business practices will continue as the five center leaders work with staff to set their goals, strategies, and performance measures--which will be aligned with the Department's strategic plan.

8. Re-engineer the financial management process--A cross-division re-engineering team was formed in April 1999 and a vendor is currently working on the data model and mapping the financial system data needs.

9. Develop technical support plan (in anticipation of statewide performance standards)--A technical assistance system has been designed and is in the initial phases of implementation. This system is discussed more fully beginning on page 3 of this report.

10. Re-engineer the teacher licensure investigation and disciplinary process--The Office of Professional Conduct has been established within the Center for the Teaching Profession and its first quarterly report on performance measures will be presented at this January Board meeting.

The Department's Y2K and year-end readiness activities successfully brought us through the transition to year 2000. We remediated the Y2K exposures in all of our critical systems and then focused on completing personal computer remediation and final business continuity planning activities.

The Department's Senior Leadership team has been organized and meets at least weekly. Also, the Policy Leadership Team, including senior leadership and directors, meets at least once a month.

As the Strategic Plan is further defined by center leaders, an improved system of performance measures and appraisals will begin for Department staff. Under the direction of Deputy Superintendent Roger Nehls, an initial draft and second performance appraisal/professional development instrument has been reviewed by senior leadership. Such performance appraisal will be goals driven with identified performance measures. The performance appraisal framework will also be a tool for professional development and the basis for merit pay or bonuses for Department administrators.

The Ohio Award for Excellence is a tiered recognition system that allows for a "stepping stone" approach to the national Baldrige standards. The Department has been accepted for Tier One, a Pledge Toward Excellence, and has submitted additional documentation for its application. The application is being reviewed by the Quality Award team and the award team will make a site visit to Department in Spring 2000.

The Ohio Baldrige in Education Initiative (BiE IN) leadership team is co-chaired by me and Rod Rice, the Executive Director of Ohio's BEST.

The team has agreed to work on a common approach to state goals and a consensus process with Jim Shipley, as the coach and observer. A committee met earlier this month to develop state education goals and the state leadership team agreed on the goals on January 6. The goals are:

- Assure high achievement for all learners.

- Promote safe and orderly learning environments.

- Preserve and nurture enthusiasm for learning.

- Foster the ability to learn.

- Help every generation learn, enhance, and practice the character traits that are valued by their communities.

- Support efficient, effective, and continuously improving systems of learning. (Definition of Learning: increasing the individuals' and organizations' capacities to bring about a desired result.)

These goals will be discussed at the first training session for the Ohio BiE IN school districts held on January 7-8, 2000. Eight Ohio school districts participated in this BiE IN training at Ashland Chemical Corporate Headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. Those attending were local leadership teams representing teachers, administrators, and school board members from Ashland City Schools, Chillicothe City Schools, Coldwater Exempted Village Schools, Mentor Exempted Village Schools, Rossford Exempted Village Schools, Sandusky City Schools, Warren City Schools, and Worthington City Schools. Jim Shipley led the training session which was an orientation for the two-year project.

After the Executive Director for Internal Operations is in place later this month, we will be searching for a new human resources director and realigning the functions of organizational development and training. The next ODE University series will be of great importance to staff as it will address the reorganization of the Department and the work of the five new centers.

One of my objectives as Superintendent is to ensure that we have performance measures for all agency programs. During the course of the year I have provided updates on three particularly high-profile evaluations, the Ohio Literacy Initiative, the Cleveland Voucher Program, and Community Schools. During this time I also asked staff to develop an evaluation framework that could be used across all programs in the agency. To carry out this work, a Research Council was formed and includes representatives of the major program offices (e.g., Special Education, Career-Technical and Adult Education, Assessment and Evaluation, etc.) and the Office of Policy Research. The council is chaired by Matt Cohen, Director of Policy Research.

The purpose of the Research Council is to provide a central resource for research and evaluation and to ensure a systematic review and approval process for research projects and program evaluations. The Council is currently finalizing an Evaluation Guide, a how-to resource for program administrators. The guide has been developed collaboratively with the Department's Budget Office to ensure strong linkages between the budget planning and performance evaluation processes. The next step will be to work with the Associate Superintendents of the five centers to integrate the program evaluation framework into all agency programs. The Research Council will help to ensure high quality program evaluations, the results of which will feed directly into the budget and policy-making processes.

A dynamic mission for the Department is stated in its Strategic Plan--"Ohio will be recognized as one of the best educational systems in the nation by the year 2005."

Implementation activities continue under the Department's Strategic Plan as described in the "Strengthening Academic Performance" section of this report, and as provided in the following section (c).

2. Re-engineer the Department so that work is focused on implementing high academic achievement for all children and building educator work-force capacity.

After the discussion of the Department's Strategic Plan and its organizational implications at the July State Board Meeting, I asked Nancy Eberhart to move ahead with the planning for the Center for the Teaching Profession. The first priority was to address the KPMG management study finding that we needed to improve the management of the discipline process with regard to teacher licensure. Along with the work of the State Board's Legal Review Committee, progress has been made regarding how the disciplinary process is addressed organizationally.

The Office of Professional Conduct implements one of the functions of the Center for the Teaching Profession and is described in more detail below. The other functions are educator preparation, licensure, recruitment, retention, and professional development.

The deployment of the Department's Strategic Plan is especially critical in the area of capacity building. A key strategy is assuring there is a competent, caring teacher in every classroom. The Center for the Teaching Profession is a good pilot for how the Strategic Plan is deployed to the performance measure level. During this January Retreat you will have specific information about the progress on the performance measures for the Office of Professional Conduct. In addition, we will share how the deployment of the Strategic Plan will impact the other offices in the Center.

I have asked both Jim Shipley, our Baldrige consultant, and Craig Decker, a human resource consultant on-loan from Procter and Gamble, to work closely with the Center administrators to define centerwide goals and performance measures as well as goals, strategies, and performance measures for each office within the Center. They have both reviewed the drafts of this information.

The next critical step is to fill the administrative positions in the Centers, as accountability for the performance measures of the Center will be reflected in the individual work plans of Center staff. I will expect each of the five Centers to deploy the Strategic Plan in a manner similar to that which has been done for the Center for the Teaching Profession.

The Office of Professional Conduct was established August 30, 1999. Its goals are to manage efficiently and effectively the teacher disciplinary process, and to enhance awareness, understanding, and practice of professional conduct. Four performance measures for the Office were established with the State Board of Education: 1) Board satisfaction; 2) improved effectiveness in managing disciplinary process; 3) improved awareness, understanding, and practice of professional conduct; and 4) improved internal operation of work associated with professional conduct. The first quarterly report to the State Board on these performance measures will be presented at the January meeting and is appended with the report on the Center for the Teaching Profession.

The major accomplishments of the Office of Professional Conduct include: the strengthening of internal capacity; the establishment of an internal infrastructure to provide steady, consistent, and timely response; the evaluation of policies and practices to improve timeliness and consistency; and the initiation of outreach to improve stakeholder awareness.

(d) Build public and political support for the goals and strategies.

I continue to share the Strategic Plan with the field and with key stakeholders, such as the Governor's Office and members of the Ohio Coalition of Educational Organizations.

3. Build effective working relationships with the Governor, Legislature, and key stakeholder groups.

As noted in the December report, I continue to have discussions with Governor Taft and his staff around critical education issues. For example, I met with Governor Taft at length on December 16, December 29, and January 5. I continue to emphasize the importance of alignment for what we expect of students with what we teach and what we assess. Thus, the discussions have centered around the three major areas of the Department's Strategic Plan--clarifying expectations, increasing educator capacity, and building on the current accountability system.

On January 5, our second regional forum with the new expanded format was held at Mason High School located on the northern edge of Cincinnati. Partnering with Lakota Local and Southwestern Ohio Special Education Regional Resource Center, Mason's large new high school drew approximately 200 community members who engaged in lively discussion of education issues.

Key issues discussed included the fourth-grade reading guarantee, teacher training and professional development, character education, standards and testing, role of the state department of education, school accountability, school funding, and school safety. This second pilot forum was extremely successful, with solid, animated engagement by a broad range of participants eager to explore local issues.

Each State Board member's participation is integral to the success of these forums--especially those in your own district. The locations and dates are listed below, with the hope that you will make plans to attend one or more of these community conversations.

DATE LOCATION

February 1 Garfield Heights City
February 17 Portage County Educational Service Center (ESC)(Ravenna)
February 22 Ohio Hi-Point Career Center (Bellefontaine)
March 16 Berne Local/Lancaster City
March 23 Wood County ESC (Bowling Green)
March 30 Tri-County ESC (Wooster)
April 5 North Ridgevile City
April 13 North Fork Local (Utica)
April 17 Erie-Huron-Ottawa ESC
April 19 Mid-Ohio ESC (Mansfield)
May 3 Clinton-Fayette-Highland ESC (Hillsboro)

(a) Use stakeholder survey results to ensure staff and managers have a customer and stakeholder orientation; appropriate communication skills; and current professional knowledge.

The information from the Management Study is being utilized to emphasize a customer and stakeholder orientation in the Department's reorganization.

The Ohio Coalition of Educational Organizations will meet again on January 19, immediately after Governor Taft's State of the State address. I anticipate an interesting discussion around the education issues mentioned by the Governor.

4. Initiate a process to evaluate high priority programs, including the Cleveland Voucher Program, Community Schools, and OhioReads.

Reports were presented to the State Board in November 1999 on the evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship program. Work continues on the long-term evaluation as the Center for Evaluation, Indiana University, will test second-grade students in April 2000. After scoring and reviews by a Technical Panel, the evaluation report will be presented to the State Board by September 2000.

As reported in my letter to you of January 6, State Auditor Jim Petro and I held a press conference that day regarding his audit of the Islamic Academy School of the Arts and Sciences. I will work with the Auditor and Attorney General Betty Montgomery to pursue aggressively the recovery of $70,000 in improper voucher payments to the school.

The Legislative Office of Education Oversight is conducting a five-year evaluation of the Community Schools program. Department staff are involved to facilitate the sharing of information and collecting of data. The first-year report of the five-year evaluation is expected to be released later this January.

As to community schools, I have been keeping you informed through my Board letters about the closing of the International Preparatory School by the City of Cleveland on December 20. The school was closed for failing to meet city building occupancy requirements. Department staff assisted parents of students with enrollment in other school programs. Also, my January 6 letter to you mentioned the written notice to terminate the community school contract of Riser Military Academy in Columbus for the school's failure to meet the terms of its contract with the State Board.

I am working with staff to refine the monitoring process for community schools. The new Standards for Ohio Schools that we are developing will include an extensive review of the academic programs of community schools that must be satisfied before the contract of a community school will be renewed. Further, staff and I continue to strive to improve the quality of materials that come to the Governance Committee of the State Board as to community schools.

Staff work continued on the evaluation process to determine if the state-funded OhioReads program grants make a difference in academic performance. In addition to this evaluation, the federal Reading Excellence Act grants program has an annual evaluation requirement.

To date, staff has met with national experts regarding the design of the Reading Excellence Act evaluation to account for the multiple funding sources and various literacy activities that are occurring in Ohio and could account for the results that schools buildings and districts achieve in the next few years.

The next step in the design process is to meet with literacy experts in February to help determine measures of literacy outcomes in grades K through 3 that will have a relationship to the 4th grade reading proficiency test. Once the measures are established, a request for proposal will be issued and a contractor selected by June.

The Ohio Reads and Reading Excellence Act evaluations will be coordinated as much as possible as the same data may impact both studies.

This month, I will share with you a revised version of the draft literacy vision document, "Our Children Cannot Wait," which is a product of our past study sessions. Your comments and feedback were considered by staff and are reflected in the revision. This version is not the final document but should be read by members of the State Board for major content issues and to provide direction for the Department.

We will continue to refine this document and the policy recommendations that emphasize the priority of literacy. Again, the purpose of the literacy vision document is to guide policymakers. The Department will use the document to guide our budget and legislative recommendations on literacy in the next biennium. We will unveil the document to the Governor, Legislative leaders, and key education stakeholders in March at a legislative event. I anticipate that the document will be the "centerpiece" of the press conference held the same day as the legislative meeting.