Contact Person:
Ted Stilwill
Iowa Department of Education
Grimes State Office Building
Des Moines, IA 50319-0146
Adequate time is needed for professional development and collaborative planning. Collaborative planning time should include the following activities:
Adequate time for instruction, including the necessary individualization strategies, is also a big issue.
We should consider the functional needs that technology can support, because they offer some relief to the current allocation of human time in our system:
Instructional Technology
Direct improvements in the instructional process continue to emerge by virtue of technology, which includes distance learning, computer-managed instruction, and all manner of individualization strategies.
Information Technology
If we view students, teachers, and educational organizations as learners with the need to develop new responses to increasingly complex situations, then all need to have "just in time" access to the most current knowledge and expertise. They also need to be part of a dynamic communication network with others involved in the same learning.
Policymakers must articulate the case for change as coherently and aggressively as possible, but they must not be prescriptive about how the change must occur.
The state of Iowa provides $26 million annually for individual school districts to implement local plans for staff development and for program development in order to improve student achievement. Generally, these locally constructed plans must use these funds to provide compensation to teachers for their work in these areas or for exemplary performance. While the funds and the resulting plans do not by any means solve the time dilemma, they do provide some significant resources for additional teacher time.
Iowa has allowed waivers for 40 districts to pursue innovative calendar and scheduling options that might not have been allowed given current regulations. The Iowa Legislature has given the Iowa Department of Education very broad discretion in waiving accreditation or other school requirements at the request of districts that are pursuing innovative programs, that are working with their communities to determine high expectations for students, and that agree to report progress to their communities.
The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners is investigating a new framework for educational licensure that might provide more flexibility in the authorizations for staff to teach in multidisciplinary areas, which was one of the barriers to innovative scheduling in the past. There is also a provision for innovative waivers with this licensure board.
One of the policy supports to the time dilemma may be less policy. Schools and school districts need the flexibility to be innovative and create solutions. Most of these solutions are not ready to be applied broadly across large groups of organizations.
Those with policy responsibility must ensure that local change involves not only site-based teams, but also strategies to engage participants in determining the reasons for change and to listen to the community about the expectations that should be set for students.
Policymakers must articulate the case for change as coherently and aggressively as possible, but they must not be prescriptive about how the change must occur.
We do not want to limit the parameters for change unneccessarily. If we can consider only changing calendars and schedules using existing resources, then we are "making changes within the old paradigm," Ted Stilwill suggests. We also must consider time as part of the way we allocate human resources and allow variation in the personnel system.
Posted on March 6, 1995
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/go/94-4io.htm