Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/436829
E D U C A T O R S A R E T R A N S F O R M I N G the profession by preparing one another to handle the new Common Core State Stan- dards and sharing best practices. After all, professional ed- ucators know best what works in the classroom to reach all students. With strategic partnerships and new approaches to professional development, CTA is at the forefront of teach- er-driven education strategies that will benefit all schools and all students. The Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC) is one such groundbreaking project. CTA members, including National Board Certified Teach- ers, are teaming up with Stanford University experts for a three-year project driven by a corps of veteran classroom leaders. The main goal is to provide professional learning opportunities and expertise to educators statewide to enrich instruction and foster deeper student learning with the new academic standards. From an applicant pool of nearly 600, the selected 160 teachers and 24 education leaders and administrators are creating professional development strategies and materials to support their colleagues in learning about and imple- menting the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. This first cohort of leaders, who receive an annual stipend of $2,000, are orchestrating professional learning about the standards, and will train oth- er teachers to do the same, building local instructional and leadership capacity to support new instructional practices. Over three years, the project will ultimately engage more than 50,000 California teachers and administrators in profes- sional development. The ILC is a joint effort of CTA, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), and the National Board Resource Center at Stanford University. The project is funded by the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, the National Education Association, and the Cali- fornia Education Policy Fund. "This groundbreaking partnership is about CTA members at their best — transforming our profession by strength- ening instruction and curricular content, and reclaiming our role in designing and developing effective learning methods for each other and our students," says CTA President Dean E. Vogel. "Not enough people are really qualified to be out there teaching teachers. Who better to train than the best and the brightest among us?" "New education standards have the potential to help pro- pel students toward greater college and career readiness, but only if they are implemented with adequate resources and preparation," says Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University Charles E. Ducommun professor of education and faculty director of SCOPE. "Ultimately, it is our teachers who will be responsible for their success. The ILC enables teacher leaders to create meaningful professional learning opportunities that will help their colleagues to make the instructional shifts required by the new standards." Teaching under new standards The ILC team will grow the ability of local educators to enrich instruction in their schools and create professional learning experiences for colleagues to improve teaching under the new standards. Five project goals are to: • Grow a statewide corps of accomplished teachers and site-based leaders who will serve as instructional leader- ship consultants who can build a culture of professional learning and coherent instructional improvement. • Develop and deliver subject-specific professional devel- opment training to teachers statewide in math, English language arts, and science. • Design and deliver professional development focusing on sustainable school conditions for continuous learn- ing to principals, their district supervisors, and school leadership teams that include teachers. The goal of this professional development is to establish work- place conditions so that all teachers in a school district can learn how to connect instruction to the perfor- mance-based deeper learning expectations of the new academic standards. • Coordinate with CTA, county offices of education, the California Department of Education, school districts and other regional and statewide entities to build an infra- structure to sustain continuous instructional capacity development over time. • Create digital learning modules in the second and third years of the project of subject-specific, grade-level instructional sequences aligned to par- ticular standards, and address the critical role of site leaders in supporting continuous learning in and from the use of these modules. Much groundwork has already been done. During a two- day October training in Los Angeles to ramp up for their duties, ILC members learned from fellow educators, Stanford professors and ILC project coordinators about instructional shifts needed for the new standards in English language arts For more information and news cov- erage about the Instructional Leader- ship Corps, go to www.cta.org/ilc. Go Online @ Teachers teaching teachers By Mike Myslinski Innovative CTA-Stanford project enriches instruction and learning Instructional leadership CTA & You 52 www.cta.org