Indiana Districts Utilize NIET Structures and Support to Navigate Virtual Schooling in First Two Years of Federal Grant

So I was chatting with a colleague who asked me what I knew about the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, and since I had never heard of them before I went to their website and spent about 10 minutes looking around to see who they were and what they were all about.  While I’ll save my assessment for private conversations, as I was looking over their research page I came across this entry that I thought might be of some interest to readers of this space.

With the help of a federal grant from the Teacher and School Leader (TSL) Incentive Program, Indiana’s Brown County Schools, Goshen Community Schools, and Perry Township Schools have benefited from NIET’s TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement, especially during the pandemic. During focus groups conducted in fall 2020, principals and district administrators shared how TAP sharpened their focus on high-quality instruction as they transitioned from face-to-face to virtual learning modalities. Here are the four most commonly reported themes:

1. Creating Virtual Professional Learning Communities: During TAP’s professional learning “cluster” meetings, teachers have been able to examine student data, engage in collaborative planning, and learn instructional strategies that have been field-tested in their respective schools. School leadership teams utilized this structure to prepare teachers for the virtual environment.
2. Leveraging Teacher Leaders: This grant component leverages the contributions of highly skilled teachers who want to advance their careers without having to leave the classroom to become administrators. These teacher leaders have played a key role as a link between school administration and classroom learning. This role intensified in work with their teams during COVID-19 to ensure effective instructional practices continued.
3. Aligning Practice to the NIET Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric: The three districts view the NIET Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric as the common denominator for providing effective instruction regardless of delivery mode. The NIET Rubric Companion for Virtual Instruction helps educators deepen their understanding of high-quality virtual learning.
4. Coaching and Support: As part of the TSL grant, schools and districts are supported by a team of NIET coaches and support staff and have access to a number of materials and resources. These include the NIET Rubric Companion for Virtual Instruction and accompanying handbook, “deep dives” into transforming lessons from in-person to virtual, webinars on observation and evaluation in a virtual environment, and formal NIET trainings.

Our virtual clusters have been absolutely brilliant. We’re talking about virtual instruction and we’re teaching about virtual instruction. We’re giving so many tools for the teachers to take back into use. Our transition to virtual has been so smooth because of our master teachers, their use of virtual clusters, and using the tools that were going to be needed.

Perry Township Schools Principal

For the first year and a half of the grant period, district and school leaders report the effectiveness of instruction remained high through the efforts of their personnel and the TAP System. They look ahead with resounding pride and confidence of their partnership with NIET and the progress they have achieved.

• Research Brief: Indiana Districts Utilize NIET Structures and Support to Navigate Virtual Schooling in First Two Years of Federal Grant
• Policy Paper: Investing in Teacher Leadership to Accelerate Learning

Topics in this post: TEACHER LEADERSHIP, PROFESSIONAL LEARNING, INSTRUCTIONAL COACHING, EDUCATOR OBSERVATION/EVALUATION, TAP SYSTEM FOR TEACHER AND STUDENT ADVANCEMENT, STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Indiana Online shared a post: Are you…

So this scrolled through my inbox just before the new year began.

Indiana Online shared a post: Are you an elite athlete or performer looking for a way to stay enrolled with your school while traveling? Indiana Online’s Academy full-time program… See post [Stuff deleted]

Never miss an update with the LinkedIn app This email was intended for Michael Barbour (Professor of Instructional Design and Director of Faculty Development for the College of Education & Health Services, Touro University California) Learn why we included this. You are receiving LinkedIn notification emails. Help © 2022 LinkedIn Corporation, 1‌000 West Maude Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085. LinkedIn and the LinkedIn logo are registered trademarks of LinkedIn.

The full item looked like this..

I guess it just caught my attention because it perpetuates a long held understanding that researchers of full-time K-12 online learning programs have just known.  While these cyber charter schools will point to the a perception that they serve lower ability, struggling, at-risk students whenever someone questions their performance or tries to regulate them, the data has consistency not supported that perception.  The data have pointed to the reality that these schools often serve a higher proportion of students described by this ad – students that are motivated, driven, organized, and who often have a strong support system around them.

Clearly this isn’t the description of all cyber charter and full-time online learning students, but the data has consistently shown that this type of students is over represented – often to the amount of four to five times higher – in online learning than in the traditional brick-and-mortar environments.  Yet even with a higher percentage of students who have characteristics that should make them stronger performers, and a lower proportion of students who truly are struggling and at-risk, students enrolled in these full-time online programs and cyber charters consistency perform worse than their brick-and-mortar counterparts.

Unfortunately we have a small cadre of researchers in the field that have made a career out of looking for data-driven excuses to explain this when the root cause is generally staring them strait in the face.  The one thing that these programs generally have in common is that they are directly or indirectly run by for-profit corporations – so the instructional model is not based on good pedagogy or sound instructional design.  It is based on how to minimize the cost of educating each student (or put another way, how to maximize the profits per widget – cause that’s what for-profit corporations do).

Special Investigation Report of Indiana Virtual Education Foundation Inc., Indiana Virtual School, and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy

So a colleague of mine passed along this Education Week article that was posted a couple of days ago.

SCHOOL CHOICE & CHARTERS

Virtual Charters in Hot Water Again. Accusations of Fraud Prompt $150M Lawsuit

By Arika Herron, The Indianapolis Star — July 12, 2021

Indiana’s attorney general Todd Rokita speaks at a news conference on Sept. 16, 2020, in Indianapolis.

Darron Cummings/AP

 

A consortium of virtual schools accused of defrauding the state of Indiana out of millions of dollars are now being sued, as state officials seek to recoup more than $150 million they say was either wrongly obtained or misspent by the schools.

Attorney General Todd Rokita filed the lawsuit against Indiana Virtual School, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, Indiana Virtual Educational Foundation, and several other related entities and individuals in Hamilton County Superior Court Thursday. In a statement released Monday, Rokita said the lawsuit represents the largest amount of monetary damages ever sought by the attorney general’s office following a State Board of Accounts investigation.

“This massive attempt to defraud Hoosier taxpayers through complex schemes truly boggles the mind,” Rokita said. “This case demonstrates once again that public servants must remain ever vigilant in our work to safeguard the public treasury from opportunists.”

To continue reading, click here.

 

The article is based on a report that was published by the Indiana State Board of Accounts about 18 months ago.  The report is available at:

https://www.in.gov/sboa/WebReports/B54446.pdf

Indiana Bill To Require Online Learning

This bill announced in the Fall has finally been introduced.

Senate Bill 0179

2012 Second Regular Session

Latest Information

DIGEST OF INTRODUCED BILL Virtual instruction course requirement. Requires a student pursuing a Core 40 high school diploma to complete one virtual instruction course.

Current Status:

In Committee – first House

Latest Printing (PDF)

• Action List
• Introduced Bill
• Fiscal Impact Statement(s): 1(PDF)
• House Committee Reports
• House Amendments
• Senate Committee Reports
• Senate Amendments
• Conference Committee Reports

IN Schools Chief Backs Online Class Requirement

Yesterday I mentioned about Idaho moving one step closer to requiring online classes, well today we move to another state.  Again, courtesy of the iNACOL forums.

Indiana schools chief backs online class requirement
Evansville Courier and Press
Associated Press
Posted September 13, 2011 at 7:50 a.m.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/sep/…lass-requireme/

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s state schools superintendent says he wants all students in the state take at least one class online before graduating from high school.

Superintendent Tony Bennett says he’ll outline his legislative proposal for the requirement during his State of Education speech on Tuesday.

Bennett tells The Indianapolis Star such a requirement is a way to make sure students are prepared to do online work. He says he wants local school districts to decide what types of courses to offer online and whether students would complete online assignments at home or during regular school time.

Bennett is to give his speech Tuesday evening at the Indiana History Center in downtown Indianapolis.

There is more information about this in this article as well – http://www.indystar.com/article/20110912/N…xt|IndyStar.com