Midwest Instructional Leadership Council Newsletter Archive

miLc Matters

Building and sustaining capacity for increasing the achievement of ALL children

Volume #1, Newsletter #2

September 2011

IN THIS ISSUE

A Few Thoughts on Leadership

Perspectives from the Field

Secondary RtI Institute

Early Learning/Early Childhood RtI

Alignment Foundations Blog Series

Upcoming Events

Midwest Leadership Summit V - September 26-27, 2011 - Mayo Civic Center - Rochester, MN

Secondary Applications of Response to Intervention - November 7, 2011 - Stoney Creek Inn - Onalaska, WI

2nd Annual Early Learning Institute - March 2, 2012 - Wilderness Territory - Wisconsin Dells WI

Click here for more information

Hello,

The 2011-2012 school year is upon us. There will undoubtedly be many challenges that confront us during this year, but there is one challenge that we must meet. That challenge is an unrelenting focus on high quality instruction so that all students achieve to high levels.

The work that you do is important. It is our hope that you will find some encouragement and inspiration in this newsletter. It is important that we all revisit why we do what we do as we work with children.

Over the course of the past year we have conducted an assessment of the status of implementation of response to intervention in a number of districts and schools. One component of that assessment examines the beliefs that educational professionals have toward the ability of students to achieve, even when they have sufficient support.

It is somewhat surprising that only about 50% of educational professionals believe that students can achieve to high standards even when provided with sufficient support. What do you think about that?

It suggests to us that educational professionals have a better grip on the "what" and the "how" of response to intervention, but may have missed the foundation. That foundation is the "why" - the reason that response to intervention is so important.

The video below may help us to remember to focus on the "why" of response to intervention. See what you think....

QUICK LINKS

Leadership...A Few Thoughtsby John H Faust

It was in the early 1960's when Bob Dylan penned these words:

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a changing'.

So, what do these words have to do with leadership? Are they applicable to us today in public education?

Change is in the wind in public education all across our country. Even a surface level awareness of the political debate that is raging at the federal and state levels on the role of government serves notice that the times are indeed changing. Public education as we know it has changed. If you do not believe that, please do some research on the monumental changes in Wisconsin. The times are indeed a changing'.

Whether that change is good, bad, or indifferent is largely irrelevant. We can get stuck in the debate and getting stuck does not necessarily translate to action. As educational leaders it is incumbent on us to make the most of difficult and challenging situations and that is certainly true now. In every situation that we encounter, there is both danger and opportunity. If we focus on danger, we can become paralyzed with fear and not take action and throw our hands up in despair. If we focus on the opportunity that exists even in what appears to be difficult and seemingly intractable circumstances, new solutions and paradigms will emerge. I humbly suggest that we need to embrace the opportunity while at the same time paying attention to the danger. Our students deserve the best that we have to offer.

Perspectives From the Field

Strengthening Core Instruction at the High School Level - Diane Jensen

Strengthening Tier 1 [Core] instruction has been the focus in building our Response to Intervention framework at Monona Grove High School, Monona Wisconsin for the past two years. Data from 2002 indicated that about 60% of our students were earning grades of C- or above. Although our building staff agreed that overall our students should be performing better than what the data indicated, and we had developed a building goal stating 80% of students would be earning grades of C- or better, our data did not change because we, as a staff, did not do anything different that would improve student performance. Essentially, we were waiting for our students to start working harder.

Read more...http://attachment.benchmarkemail.com/c120074/MGHS_Core_Instruction_-_Jensen.pdf

Secondary Research to Practice Institute by Elizabeth Witter Freeman

The Midwest Instructional Leadership Council [miLc] is very pleased to announce our upcoming one-day conference, Secondary Applications of Response to Intervention: Emerging Frameworks and Effective Practices, for middle and high school staff on November 7, 2011 at the Stoney Creek Inn in Onalaska, Wisconsin. This inaugural event is focused on the unique issues of implementing response to intervention models of educational service delivery at the middle and high school levels.

Please read more by selecting the following linkl to Elizabeth's full article: http://attachment.benchmarkemail.com/c120074/Freeman_Secondary_RtI_Institute.pdf

To learn more about the Secondary RtI Institute, please visit our website at http://www.milcleaders.org/events.

To learn more about the institute, please review the registration brochure http://attachment.benchmarkemail.com/c120074/Secondary_RtI_Registration1.pdf

Online registration can be accessed by selecting this link: online registration

We look forward to seeing you at the Stoney Creek Inn!

Early Learning/Early Childhood by Robin Miller-Young

Early Learning/Early Childhood applications of response to intervention are important components of a system-wide response to intervention model of educational service delivery for all students. The following article was submitted by Robin Miller-Young, Students Services Coordinator,at Indian Prairie School District in Illiniois. The article originally appeared in Volume 17, #4 of tyhe Illinois Division for Early Childhood (IDEC) in June 2011 [IDEC Newsletter].

Resources for RtI in EC and Preschool Settings:

Where can you look to learn more about RtI in Early Childhood (EC) and Preschool settings? Try the RTI Action Network, a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, where their motto is "Helping ALL Students Succeed"!

Alignment Foundations Blog Series by Brad Niebling

I just started a new line of blogs called the "Foundations Series." More descriptively, I plan to regularly blog about foundational curriculum alignment topics and issues. These blogs will occur once a month, and will coincide with the dissemination of the miLc monthly newsletter.