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Transforming Professional Learning to Prepare College- and Career-Ready Students: Implementing the Common Core

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Learning Forward, in collaboration with Council of Chief State School Officers, will collaborate with the Kentucky Department of Education and several school districts within Kentucky to transform professional learning and create a framework for a statewide, comprehensive professional learning system that supports deep implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and upcoming new assessments. Six states, Georgia, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Utah, and Washington, will serve as Critical Friend States to contribute to and learn from the transformation in Kentucky. The framework will include a vision for professional learning and methods for advancing, monitoring, and evaluating it. It will align state policies, practices, and supports to prepare and support educators to meet the challenge and deliver on the promise of Common Core State Standards and new assessments. Transforming Professional Learning's primary goal it to ensure that all students leaving high school will be ready for college and career. Generous funding from Sandler Foundation supports the first year of this initiative. Read the full press release.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports Learning Forward's Transforming Professional Learning to Prepare College- and Career-Ready Students: Implementing the Common Core with a generous grant. Specifically, the BMGF funds support the development and implementation of technology solutions to support the planning, implementation, and evaluation of effective professional learning associated with Common Core State Standards. Through this grant, the Transforming Professional Learning demonstration state (KY) will have opportunities to pilot technology solution developed by other BMGF iPD grantees that support their comprehensive professional learning system. In addition, KY and critical friend states (GA, IL, NH, NJ, UT, and WA) will contribute to the design of a districtwide system for auditing professional learning to provide easily accessible data analysis for making informed decisions about professional learning. Read the full press release.

This web page will provide periodic updates about the initiative, released documents, and resources for states and districts to use to support implementation of the Common Core standards. For information about this initiative, please contact Joellen Killion, senior advisor, Learning Forward, 303-520-6790 or joellen.killion@learningforward.org

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Learning Forward
Learning Forward's purpose is ensuring that every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves. Learning Forward is a nonprofit, international association of learning educators focused on increasing student achievement through more effective professional learning.


Council of Chief State School Officers
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nationwide, nonpartisan, and nonprofit membership organization of the top education leaders from states in the nation. Its mission is to create a public education system that prepares every child for lifelong learning, work, and citizenship by focusing on the state-driven leverage points that will increase capacity to produce students ready to succeed as productive members of society. Two key CCSSO initiatives are relevant to the work of this project. The State Consortium on Educator Effectiveness (SCEE) consists of 28 states working together as state teams to build coherent educator effectiveness systems that are standards-based, learner-centered, and build capacity of teachers and leaders to improve outcomes for every learner. The work includes aligning and integrating changes across system components such as recruitment, preparation, licensure, ongoing professional learning, and evaluation. The Implementing the Common Core State Standards (ICCS) collaborative consists of 32 states working together as state teams to explore and share resources and strategies on how to change education systems to successfully implement the CCSS for students. This work includes examining and integrating changes across system components such as curriculum, assessments, professional development, accountability, instructional materials, and data systems. More information about CCSSO is available at www.ccsso.org.


sandlerlogo Sandler Foundation
Sandler Foundation is a national foundation that works to improve quality of life. It seeks to promote education policy changes that support high-quality learning environments where learning is meaningful, substantive, and relevant to individual and societal needs and interests. The foundation focuses on equitable educational policies that create effective systems for effectively reaching students who are currently least well-served by the school system. For more information about Sandler Foundation, visit www.sandlerfoundation.org.


Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. The foundation supported all three parts of the Status of Professional Learning research study, and it continues to fund Learning Forward to disseminate its work in improving teacher effectiveness through conferences and publications. In developing countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people -- especially those with the fewest resources -- have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. For more information about Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, visit www.gatesfoundation.org.


National Governors Association
The National Governors Association (NGA)--the bipartisan organization of the nation's governors--promotes visionary state leadership, shares best practices and speaks with a collective voice on national policy. Founded in 1908, the National Governors Association is the collective voice of the nation's governors and one of Washington, D.C.'s most respected public policy organizations. Its members are the governors of the 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths. NGA provides governors and their senior staff members with services that range from representing states on Capitol Hill and before the Administration on key federal issues to developing and implementing innovative solutions to public policy challenges through the NGA Center for Best Practices. NGA also provides management and technical assistance to both new and incumbent governors. Through NGA, governors identify priority issues and deal collectively with matters of public policy and governance at the state and national levels. For more information about National Governors Association, visit www.nga.org/cms/home.html.


National Association of State Boards of Education
The National Association of State Boards of Education is the only national organization giving voice and adding value to the nation's State Boards of Education. A non-profit organization founded in 1958, NASBE works to strengthen state leadership in educational policymaking, promote excellence in the education of all students, advocate equality of access to educational opportunity, and assure continued citizen support for public education. For more information about National Association of State Boards of Education, visit http://nasbe.org/.


American Association of Colleges for Teachers Education
The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education is a national alliance of educator preparation programs dedicated to the highest quality professional development of teachers and school leaders in order to enhance PK-12 student learning. The 800 institutions holding AACTE membership represent public and private colleges and universities in every state, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam. AACTE's reach and influence fuel its mission of serving learners by providing all school personnel with superior training and continuing education. For more information about American Association of Colleges for Teachers Education, visit http://aacte.org/.



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