Assessment and Evaluation / New Comparative Study of Two Schools in Virginia/ Professional Development/ A Bridge to CSR Schools/ Core Knowledge National Coordinators / Holly Hensey: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of Colorado/ Sam Ayers: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of West Texas/ Bruce Frazee: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of San Antonio/ New Initiative in the Arkansas Delta/ New Partnership with H-E-B School District in Texas
Core
Knowledge connected to our principal clients
—existing and
potential Core Knowledge schools
—in new ways this year.
Success in schools is, after all, the most important
measure of our own success. We have highlighted that success
with a new program that designates schools as Official Core
Knowledge Visitation Sites. We will recommend these schools to
educators, local board members, state-level administrators,
funding agencies, and others as schools to visit to see Core
Knowledge in action. As
of
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Meadows Valley School District 11 in New Meadows, Idaho
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Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden, Massachusetts
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Normandy Elementary School in Littleton, Colorado
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Piney Woods Community Academy in Lufkin, Texas
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Sierra Grande School District in Blanco, Colorado
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The PEAK School in Flagstaff, Arizona
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Windsor Charter Academy in Windsor, Colorado
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Franklin K-8 School in Corvallis, Oregon
In connection with the Visitation Site program, we have revamped the process for defining official school status. Our interest is not to focus on growth for growth's sake, but to refine the standards for inclusion in the network so that official status signifies real quality and a real commitment to the Core Knowledge curriculum. To this end, official status requires that schools subscribe to a full range of professional development workshops and training programs offered by the Foundation, submit complete documentation regarding implementation on an annual basis, and sponsor a visit from a representative of the Foundation. In the future acquiring official status will be associated with becoming a visitation site. At the time this report is being submitted, there are 93 schools that have been designated as official. The total number of K-8 schools designated as Friends and Official Schools is 470. There are many more schools that use Core Knowledge; these numbers include only those who comply with our rigorous new reporting standards.
Bridges, of course, go in two directions and this year we have been happy to respond to a request that came directly from schools by producing a day-by-day planner. We began development in August of 2003 and expect to release the planner in CD form in August of 2004. This planner is a major improvement on the existing monthly planner and enables teachers, especially new teachers, to improve pacing, to see the streamlining of various resources into coverage of the Sequence, and to assess how both state standards and local subject matter can be incorporated into the curriculum.
Assessment and Evaluation
Many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of Core Knowledge on student achievement, such as the Oklahoma City Study of 2000, two John Hopkins' studies in the late 1990's, and various comparative studies of Core Knowledge schools in Colorado. However because we believe that continual updates are important, in 2003 we commissioned Herb Walberg, an independent researcher with the Heartland Institute in Chicago, to conduct a study of eight official North Carolina schools, comparing student performance on a variety of state tests with state averages. The demographics of the North Carolina schools and the nature of their staffing will provide a valuable and representative sampling of performance outcomes. Results of the study are due in spring of 2004.
New Comparative Study of Two Schools in Virginia
In 2003 researcher Fred Smith published the results of a longitudinal study of two schools in Virginia. Smith compared students in a Core Knowledge school with students in another school in the same district with a similar demographic make-up. He tracked the effect of Core Knowledge on student achievement using a quasi-experimental, longitudinal, matched-comparison design. The most distinctive aspect of Smith's research was that it tracked students across several years of schooling, from kindergarten to sixth grade.
Smith's research, described in more detail on the website, provides compelling longitudinal evidence that Core Knowledge can improve academic performance for both advantaged and disadvantaged students, and can help to narrow the achievement gap between these two groups. His findings also suggest that Core Knowledge may have certain latent effects —effects that may not be visible immediately, and may not show up in a one-year study, but begin to appear after several years of exposure to the curriculum and can grow quite large when exposure persists throughout the elementary years.
Professional Development
A renewed emphasis on professional development resulted in a substantial increase in the number of Leadership Institutes held this year as well as in the average number of attendees. Instead of the usual two institutes, five were conducted this year. Three were held in Charlottesville, one in Lubbock, Texas, and one in Denver, Colorado. The total number of principals, vice principals, and Core Knowledge Coordinators attending was 133. We also sponsored 360 days of professional development workshops at 120 different schools and other venues. Seventeen of these schools were new to Core Knowledge.
This year Core Knowledge has added a new workshop to the seven workshops already in place. The new workshop assists schools in aligning their curriculum to state standards, a process that Core Knowledge has worked on throughout the year. Alignments available through this separate workshop or as an add-on to the Getting Started Workshop are available for the states of Texas, California, Virginia, Georgia, and Arkansas.
The work of Core Knowledge has been greatly enhanced this year, as in years past, by the support of dedicated consultants from across the country. These consultants are administrators and teachers in existing Core Knowledge Schools who devote some of their time to various tasks related to recruitment and professional development. They are invaluable resources for training new teachers and assisting with conferences and workshops.
A Bridge To CSR Schools
Since 2000 Yolanda Van Ness has represented Core Knowledge interests as a staff member located in San Antonio, having worked many years before that as a Consultant and Core Knowledge teacher. From this location she oversees schools operating under a CSR Grant (Comprehensive School Reform Grant) that have chosen Core Knowledge as one of the reform models approved by the U.S. Department of Education. She executes the training and evaluation tasks required under the terms of the grant and provides training and advice to non-CSR schools convenient to her location. Currently, Yolanda works with 37 schools, helping them with the year-long plan, conducting model lessons, assisting with annual reports, and in general doing whatever is necessary to implement Core Knowledge. In 2003 Yolanda conducted over 20 workshops and follow-up visits to CSR schools. In addition to working directly with schools, Yolanda promotes Core Knowledge by attending various educational fairs and meetings sponsored by state education departments.
Core Knowledge National Coordinators
In this annual report we also want to recognize the excellent work of our National Coordinators who commit their time to the work of the Foundation. Not directly paid by the Foundation, they raise their own funds to further our mission, often introducing Core Knowledge to new schools and training teachers in using the Core Knowledge Curriculum.
Holly Hensey: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of Colorado
When the Core Knowledge Regional Center in Colorado was disbanded in 2002 for financial reasons, its director, Holly Hensey, secured funding to develop her own coordination program to enhance and extend the presence of Core Knowledge in Colorado. Currently she coordinates the work of 54 schools in Colorado and in 2003 provided them with the following services:
- Colorado Core Knowledge Website-includes a calendar of events and provides access to a resource library and to hundreds of lesson plans.
- Annual Conference-the 2003 conference held in Denver was attended by 850 people from over 90 schools who were offered over 150 sessions.
- Summer Writing Institute-80 teachers from over 26 schools attended and produced 67 units, which are now posted on the website.
- Resource Library-over 3000 volumes, which support the Core Knowledge curriculum, have been collected with the help of Colorado Department of Education and offered through the Department of Education's website for interlibrary loan to Core Knowledge teachers.
- Standards alignment-the alignment between Core Knowledge topics and the Colorado standards has been completed by Holly and is available at no expense when professional development is scheduled through the Core Knowledge Foundation.
- Teacher Roundtable-the networking roundtable, formerly held twice a year for three hours, was changed to one all-day roundtable. This roundtable, connecting teachers to their grade-level colleagues from other schools, is funded by a grant and free to teachers.
- Leadership Institute-the Leadership Institute, usually held only in Charlottesville, was also offered for the first time in Colorado on April 15. Seventy-five Core Knowledge Administrators attended the program featuring training by Gerald Terrell and Cyndi Wells. The institute was funded by state grant money.
Core Knowledge Schools in Colorado continue to outperform the state average on standardized tests as shown by this sampling of schools in the chart below:
Schools have scored above the state average.
School |
3rd Gr. Reading | 4th Gr. Reading | 4th Gr. Writing | 5th Gr. Math | 7th Gr. Reading | 8th Gr. Science | ||||||||||||
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 01 | 02 | 03 | |
Jefferson
Academy |
96% | 98% | 91% | 86% | 89% | 88% | 59% | 87% | 75% | 62% | 78% | 86% | 785 | 79% | 77% | 60% | 64% | 59% |
Littleton
Academy |
98% | 94% | 96% | 83% | 98% | 92% | 63% | 92% | 85% | 89% | 94% | 94% | 90% | 90% | 96% | 73% | 83% | 86% |
Liberty
Common School |
100% | 95% | 96% | 93% | 96% | 95% | 70% | 88% | 77% | 79% | 75% | 82% | 93% | 95% | 87% | 63% | 90% | 88% |
Monument
Academy |
95% | 97% | 100% | 88% | 80% | 83% | 73% | 64% | 65% | 73% | 81% | 81% | 77% | 85% | 78% | 73% | 67% | 88% |
Platt
River Academy |
84% | 90% | 98% | 87% | 73% | 80% | 62% | 71% | 83% | 68% | 92% | 77% | 81% | 73% | 77% | NA | 71% | 70% |
State
Average |
72% | 72% | 74% | 63% | 61% | 63% | 38% | 50% | 52% | 51% | 55% | 56% | 63% | 59% | 615 | 49% | 50% | 49% |
(Scores for each school shown are the percentage of students at Proficient or Advanced)
These results attest to the work of Holly Hensey and all the Core Knowledge teachers in Colorado. Besides the projects listed above, Holly publishes a newsletter for Colorado teachers and fields many phone calls and e-mails seeking information about the Core Knowledge curriculum.
Sam Ayers: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of West Texas
Sam Ayers is the coordinator for 20 Lubbock area schools. In addition to conducting monthly programs, holding an annual regional conference, and participating in training workshops, he helped to organize the following activities in support of Core Knowledge schools and teachers.
In June 2003, he sponsored a Unit writing institute at the Lubbock campus of Wayland Baptist University for 27 teachers. Ten of the units written during the week were accepted for presentation at the Atlanta conference.
Alignments for the state standards tests (TEKS) have been correlated for kindergarten through 6th grade and are posted on the website. This year a set of grade level correlations were delivered to all Lubbock area schools for use in planning Core Knowledge lessons and units.
Training activities for preschool were expanded. Training was initiated one year ago at two campuses. A larger training session for 22 area preschool teachers was held in August 2003.
Administrators from the Lubbock area Core Knowledge schools attended a one-day condensed version of the Leadership institute sponsored by the Foundation. Gerald Terrell, Cyndi Wells, and Yolanda Van Ness presided over the sessions.
Work on the Resource Library continued. Established four years ago with 200 books, library now offers 1400 volumes for use by Core Knowledge teachers. They are housed at Lubbock Christian University where they are also used by students in preparing Core Knowledge lessons for their practice teaching assignments.
Bruce Frazee: National Core Knowledge Coordinator of San Antonio
This year has been very active for the 17 Core Knowledge Schools in the San Antonio area (SACK). The first SACK event, attended by 100 people, was held on October 14 at Hardy Oak Elementary School. An overview of Core Knowledge was presented to teachers and administrators interested in implementing it in their schools. Much time was also spent preparing for the "Core Knowledge Mini-Conference" to be held at Coronado Village Elementary School on Feb. 10, 2004. At this event teachers who wrote Core Knowledge units to present at the Core Knowledge National Conference will preview them for teachers and administrators who will not be attending.
SACK also sponsored several Core Knowledge meetings for coordinators and principals to arrange SACK events, to share ideas, and to develop a support network for the area's Core Knowledge schools. These meetings were attended by an average of 20 people.
Twenty teachers attended the June 2003 Core Knowledge Writing Institute, which was co-sponsored by Trinity University.
SACK also held a SACK Teacher of the Year competition. Teachers and administrators were encouraged to select nominees who exemplify outstanding traits as Core Knowledge teachers. All teachers nominated had written Core Knowledge units, presented at the national conference, and displayed great enthusiasm and ability in the classroom. The winners of this year's competition were Patricia Shaughnessy and Debra Mentzer of Hawthorne Elementary.
Grant funds were raised to send 56 people to the 2004 Core Knowledge National Conference in Atlanta. Nine of the people attending will present units written during the Core Knowledge Summer Writing Institute.
Finally, the SACK website has been updated to provide new information about participating schools and about new resources on the web available for use in the classroom.
New Initiative in the Arkansas Delta
Core Knowledge is developing a new pilot program for the K-8 schools in the Arkansas Delta. The program, which is envisioned to be a model for the future, will feature an intensive training program and the guidance of a full-time director. In July, Judy Sisson was hired to direct the program from her base in Arkansas. The phase-in of the curriculum will take place over a longer time period than usual and will be guided by the newly developed day-by-day planner. Accommodations will be made for under-prepared students and special attention will be directed at involving parents or compensating for absent support. To date two schools have committed to adopting the Core Knowledge curriculum. Coordination with the Core Knowledge preschool program, already in place in Arkansas, is expected to be advantageous. Judy Sisson and her in-school consultants will meet in Charlottesville in the summer of 2004 to assess progress and develop any new strategies necessary for success.
New Partnership with H-E-B School District in Texas
Core Knowledge is partnering with the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District in applying for a federal grant to support enrichment training for teachers of American history. The proposal establishes a collaboration among Core Knowledge, the HEB School District, the University of Texas at Arlington, and several Virginia Historic Sites, specifically, Colonial Williamsburg, Historic Jamestown, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, and James Madison's Montpelier. Through American history courses and the use of distance learning technologies like video conferencing, teachers will be able to participate in programs offered by university professors and by experts at historic Virginia institutions. The Core Knowledge staff will assist participants in adapting information and materials to classroom settings.