Chris Roe: And Im really pleased to welcome Dennis Bartels, executive director of the Exploratorium, and also a board member for CSLNet, who is going to moderate this panel. So Dennis, take it away. Dennis Bartels: Thank you, Chris, and thanks to all of you. Its wonderful. I recognize a number of old friends and what I call sort of the old STEM warriors dating back to the late 1980s and 1990s still on the room, still here with us. I just had a nice meeting with Jerry Valadez not too long ago. But whats more exciting for me than ever is actually seeing how many new faces and new friends we have here in the room. And I also like to remark in the last 30 years how much more colorful and diverse this room is than I think when we started a couple of decades ago. So power to all of you. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: For those who want to grab a table, there's one up here that we wont have your vision boxes. A few more over there, I appreciate that you will be able to see our distinguished panelist today. But its my honor to introduce this panel to moderate this session with regards to the Next Generation Science Standards at the national level and what's California going to do about it here for our home state. For those of you who dont know, the Standards Movement is not a new one. Indeed, I think it was Dr. Conant, the president of Harvard University over 150 years ago who took it upon himself to evaluate the American High School Curriculum especially as regards to Chemistry, and he visited some 200 classrooms in 200 days crossing the country, and he love to say, I never missed a single lesson. So for a longest time, actually it was our publishers in the publishing industry that actually created what was taught. And about 25 years ago, people say Geez, should we really leave this to the publishing industry or should States and others really decide what it is thats important for our students to learn? And so the standard movements were born and in fact I had a very strong hand to play with them in 1990. I actually helped review the California Science Framework in 1991. A fabulous document that I'm still very, very proud of. Many of you participated in creating that document and then went on to South Carolina to help that state organize its curriculum reform movements around frameworks and what I like to say when frameworks are thought of more as tools than weapons. But we now have a new opportunity to redefine what it means to have standards, national standards, international standards, and what it is that we need to do about it. And for those of you not familiar with standards, the essence of the idea of a standard is not so much; this is what's going to appear in front of the student on the next day in a classroom and it was going to be tested on Friday. But honestly, it was to help all the rest of us. Those who created curricula, those who created tests, those who created professional development experiences for teachers or the speed service programs, all to get a line around the same vision of what we meant when we talked about a powerful mathematics curriculum or a powerful science experience. And I think we have a chance to sort of take the standards back and make them our own again and I'm really pleased to be in the company of five fabulous people who are all representing significant parts of that system I just described, who have to do something with these standards and theyll help us explain exactly what they're going to do. So I'm going to quickly introduce these folks and then I'm going to give each of them an opening statement of about 3 minutes to kind of equip their soapbox issues out in front of you. Ill ask them a few questions as well but my hope is the last half an hour, you get to ask all the questions and provide your own insights and comments as we go along. So first, right here closest to me is Dr. Helen Quinn. I'm going to keep these introductions brief because I know we only have an hour. But what you need to know about Helen, most of all she was the chairperson in-charge of the Next Generation Science Standards at the national level. Notice more about them than about anybody I know in there as well as being a amazing physicist, theoretical physicist in her own right at SLAC at Stanford, and somebody who has dedicated a huge part of her own career to improving STEM education. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: And then next to her, is Phil LaFontaine and I knew Phil is the Science Consultant, and always to me Phil, you'll be the Science Consultant. I was very dear. We got to work with Phil at the Exploratorium. He was in charge of our grants from the State and an incredible friend and supporter and among those warriors that I talked about. And Phil now has been promoted and is the Director of Professional Support Division at the California Department of Education, which I think it means you're responsible for those tens of thousands of teachers across the State of California, is that right in their support, growth and development. And he also comes to us as a professional teacher where he started his career. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: And then Trish Williams, whos Vice President of the California Board of Education. And Trish was actually appointed by Governor Brown last year and is already risen to the seat of vice president. But again, what's really relevant for this conversation is she is the official liaison to the STEM and science community and in particular working with the State Framework to try to define what those standards will look like for California, and she's been very active in a great deal of the policy and governance work here within the State of California and the fact that were just really, really happy to have such an advocate on the State Board of Education joining my crew to the chair. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: And Beverly Young, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Teacher Education and Public School Programs at the California State University and I think youve met Beverly earlier today. She got to accept an award that she's already taken back as her own [Laughs] Dennis Bartels: Oh and youve lost it? Beverly Young: I asked someone to hold it and I forgot to get it back. Dennis Bartels: If anybody sees a crystal about yay big [Laughs] Dennis Bartels: Check underneath the tables and let Chris or Beverly know. But Beverly is an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Teacher Education where she works with all the campus presidents of the CSU system, the vice presidents and deans of education to really help drive the changes in teacher preparation that we hope will be based on the standards for the whole 23 campus system. And she herself as a faculty in Teacher Education at the California State University, Fullerton before she joined the Chancellors office. And finally furthest from me [Applause] Dennis Bartels: --furthest from me is Matt Lonner, who is the Manager for Global Partnerships and Programs, which means this is the guy at Chevron who really manages the entire portfolio of Chevrons social investments around the world about 180 million dollars worth globally. Not just on education, but evenI was really pleased to see that he spearheaded Chevrons global health efforts in the area of HIV, AIDS and Maternal and Child Health Care globally. Some fantastic workhes also directed Chevron through a number of disaster relief efforts in Myanmar, China, The Gulf Coast, Haiti and elsewhere. And in particular, he has taken a personal interest in STEM andthank goodness for all of us, really STEM locally and the San Francisco Bay Area and Statewide in California, and I think Chevron has really put its resources where its statements have been in that regard and Matt studied and thought about this problem long and hard and were really happy that hes joining us today. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: So Helen, can we start with you? Helen Quinn: Okay, I'm going to stand up because otherwise, half of the room cant see me. So I have to correct a couple of things that Dennis said, because the development of Next Generation Science Standard Switch by the way, are national but not federal. In other words, its up to the State to decide whether they want to be part of this game and there is no federal hand in it. The National Academy, which is a non-governmental body, took the first step by forming a committee funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to develop a statement of what is it important to learn that is called a conceptual framework for K12 Science Education. You can download it from the National Academy Press. If you havent, you should because it is really what is defining what the standards will be, the Next Generation Science Standards, and it says a lot more than you can possibly say in a collection of standards. So I hope you will all download it and read if you havent already because it is our statement, oursince I chaired the committeevision for Science Education and it defines Science Education as three dimensions, Science and Engineering practices. Cross cutting ideas that count across old disciples of Science and of course disciplinary core ideas. But the idea that students must engage in doing Science and Engineering in order to learn Science is a key. And I think thats a key for the STEM learning network too. So Ill leave it there and let the next person take up the charge. Phil LaFontaine: So good afternoon, I'm Phil. So in thinking about the NGSS standards, were 1 of 27 states that have signed on to help write the standards. We have 80 people who are reviewing the standards periodically as it comes through. But one of the things that we needed to do when we became one of the riding States is that we had to basically sign a letter saying that we would seriously consider adopting the National Standards as they are. Then SB300 came along which was a State Legislative piece that mandates the department [inaudible] to present to the State Board of Education a new set of Science Standards that are based upon the NGSS Standards. And within that legislation, it says that we either adopt them whole cloth, we modify them or we reject them. And so in thinking about that, you know, its kind of an interesting idea as to where California has been in this content standards and where were going. So as Helen was just mentioning about the crosscutting concepts and the Science and Engineering Practices, what we have to think about is that where has California been? What we have currently is we have our content standards here, and then we have in our investigation and experimentation standards on the back. The goal has always been that students would do Science using the investigation experimentation wrapped in the front. What you'll see with the NGSS is that the practices as well as the crosscutting concepts are intertwined into the expectations of the actual content. And remember, what are standards really about? Standards are about the end product. At the end of the day, at the end of all the instruction, at the end of all the curriculum, what is it that we want students to be able to know and do? So there's been some conversation about the practices and maybe we shouldnt have been there, but weve already tried having them separate and it didnt work, so now were going to try and move them in. So one of the things thats new is SB1200 just passed a few weeks ago. And what that does is it tells the superintendent that he has an extension to bring them to the State Board. Originally, we were supposed to have them to the State Board on March and for adoption in July, and now what 1200 say is that we need to have them to the board in July for adoption in November. The reason for that slight shift is that the national process is taking a little longer than what we had anticipated, you know, achieve is the actual group thats doing this. So its taking us a little bit longer with all the national conversation and all the national reviews and state reviews, its just taking a little bit longer. But once the national is finished, California has two more public review sessions that it must conduct before it can bring it to the State Board in July. And so thats kind of where were at, at the moment. Dennis Bartels: Great. Well thats really helpfulto know what that background and current context is. So Trish, would you like to come up? Trish Williams: I have notes, so I'm going to go to the podium. Can you all hear me from here? I asked to be a liaison to the Next Generation Science Standards on behalf of the State Board, not because I have a Science background. I was an English major and I have Masters in Public Policy. But my youngest son is a 3rd year medical student and was a Science geek growing up and his best friend in 7th, 8th, 9th grade through college and still got a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering, and the two of them would sit at our kitchen table when the cool kids werent around and talk about popular mechanics and popular science and this is for them. So that was what motivated my interest. Chris asked me to briefly explain the role of the State Board and its relationship to the Department of Education and relation to the Next Generation Science Standards as well as the Common Core State Standards and Smarter Balance and how they all kind of worked together. And in order for me to do that pretty quickly and give you some substance, I'm going to talk quickly and read from my notes. So the State Board of education, if you dont know, its appointed by the governor. Its considered the highest policy-making body in California for K12. There are 11 members and the current board was appointed by the governor, by Jerry Brown in January of 2011, it was one of the first acts he did when he came in to office. We meet 6 times a year in public meetings to hear analysis, recommendations, and testimony and to deliberate and vote on policy decisions before us. The CDE does all the heavy lifting in this. They prepare the analysis for the State Board, they work with all the national organizations on these major initiatives and they work with State Board staff. And then once the policies are decided and adopted by the State Board, then CDE administers the programs to implement those policies. Some of you may know Mike Kirst, the president. Mike Kirst works very closely with Superintendent Tom Torlakson. They have a good working relationship. Theyif I may say so, have dinner together at every State Board meeting so that they can coordinate and talk about all of these including all of the major work ahead on common core. As the Vice President, which I was elected to by the board, I have a close working relationship with Mike Kirst. In fact, we've known each other 20 years and we worked on research projects together for 8 of those 20 years. So we know each other well and communicate often and frequently, which by the way has not always been the case with the State Board and the Department of Education, which is why I'm making a point of it here because the work ahead is really quite a load for us to accomplish. The role of the State Board over the next several years related to Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, Smarter Balance, Accountability, our role is this, to thoughtfully consider a myriad of interrelated policies that are going to come before us to make choices about their adoption that is smart to ensure their effective alignment one with the other and to work closely with the Department of Education on their effective implementation. Let me just quickly share some of the highlights of the upcoming work as it relates to advancing STEM in California. Phil talked about SB1200, which was just signed by the governor and that will do a couple of things. These are all interrelated to STEM. In addition to what Phil talked about, it authorizedit basically reopens the standard setting process, it authorizes the superintendent to recommend and the State Board to consider adopting the college and career, readiness, anchor standards that were in the common core that werent adopted by the previous State Board. It also as Phil said, authorizes the superintendent to present the California Science Standard recommendations to the State Board, now on November 30th. But in addition, it recommendsit authorizes the superintendent to recommend and the State Board to make a decision on whether or not to alter the current math standards that were previously adopted. In addition, AV 1246 authorizes the State Board to adopt instructional materials in K8 earlier than the law previously allowed them to do, which was something that teachers were pretty desperate about needing. SB1458 is about accountability and it will modify much of the existing accountability system in many ways. But one highlight that is important is that it says, by October 1st 2013, the superintendent must report to the legislature on a method for increasing emphasis on pupil mastery of standards in Science through an accountability system or my some other means. They left that flexible but there is an increased focuslegislative intent on increased focus on Science. It also authorizes the superintendent with approval of the State Board to incorporate into the academic performance index, measures of pupil preparedness for post-secondary education in career. All of these work together because they're about Math, they're about the Next Generation Science Standards, they're about this accountability system and how that will either leverage or not leverage increased attention to Math and Science. And finally on the smarter balanced assessments. The current plan is to have those fully readied implement for the 2013-14 year. A lot of people are holding their breath on that one, exactly what will they have to implement in that year and how will that be factored into any accountability system and what will teachers be held accountable for in schools. Thats one of the most nerve-wrecking of all of the questions. You do know probably that its a very different kind of assessment system. Its computer adaptive, which means that it will adapt to the students ability as they answer the questions which is supposed to provide better information on both the higher end and the lower end for the students as well as the educators that will allow more personalized learning on which should increase learning. It also is embedded with performance assessments, that kind that asks the student to show what they can do, not just ask them what they know out of a certain number of facts andabove multiple-choice bubble. And that is totally consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards and its emphasis on applying the knowledge, not just knowing the content. One question though, is, the smarter balanced assessments are for English Language Arts and Math only. They're based on the Common Core State Standards. There is not currently a consortia unless it happened in the last month or so and somebody knows about it. There is not currently a consortia thats working on developing the Science assessments that will go along with the Next Generation Science Standards, but I'm sure there will be. The people that are working behind all of this are very, very thorough. It just takes a little while. So these are all the different pieces. All of that work I mentioned to you that was just passed and statute and signed by the governor just a couple of weeks ago. Thats all due, they have deadlines embedded in that law and its all due in 2013 and 2014. Its a big workload. Its complicated and its voluminous to a line at all, and its potentially quite powerful in its contribution to this states STEM initiatives and interest. I find it both daunting and exciting. I feel honored to be on the State Board at this transformational juncture for State Education Policy. I look forward to taking your questions. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: So I dont know if you noticed that Trisha did something very clever. She got between me and my little bell to remind people the 3-minute timeline. Beverly Young: Thats what I'm going to do too. Dennis Bartels: Well I'm going to keep my bell with me [Laughs] heres your time. Beverly Young: Gosh, I cant look at that, its like racing in front of me. Okay first, Chris, I did not lose the Chancellors award. I asked someone to hold it. Its out of the desk out there I just forgot to pick it up. So hopefully, they're hanging on to it. So I would just want to reassure you. From the California State University, we see the impact of the common course standards, the Next Generation Standards on the Smart Balance Assessment as hugely affecting us in at least two big areas. The CSU produces about half of the States teachers, about somewhere around 15,000 teachers a year come out of the CSU, and of course how we prepare teachers to teach to the new common course standards and to be effective teachers in this whole new environment for teaching is critical. So it has a big impact for us on teacher preparation. Our teacher education, faculty and deans are already and have been engaged in looking at the new standards and making sure that not only do our teachers come to the cage while were reading on with the right content background and all of these areas, but with perhaps some different teaching skills and new pedagogies that will allow them to more effectively address the standards sort of in its new organization and new themes. The other big change for teacher preparation that we see is as Trish mentioned, the smart balance assessment is a computer adaptive assessment that will give teachers a whole new type of data about student learning that theyve never had before, and I think that our teachers are going to need a lot of new preparation and how to use that data, how to use that data to modify their teaching and see where their students are and move them ahead. And so I think thats a big impact for teacher preparation in the CSU. The other big area for the CSU is in the area of college readiness. The smarter balanced assessment consortium as well as the other consortium, the park model are both building their assessments really based in large part on the California State Universitys early assessment program. The model that we have here of being able to use the 11th grade assessment to make it a termination for students and their families of college readiness, and that is going to be the hallmark of both the smarter balanced and the park assessments, that 11th grade determination of readiness. So were in the process of looking at our current assessment of readiness and how that will transition into what smarter balance does in the 11th grade and how we can work with them to ensure that we still are able to make that early determination to help students and their families best use their senior year and hopefully reduce the need for remediation once they come to the CSU, the UC, Community Colleges, or any other privates in California. In all of that, one of the things we see in college readiness is that the new common course standards primarily have a much greater emphasis; you all know this, on literacy integrated with science, math and other STEM areas that has not been seen in the past. In relation to college readiness, we see this as a huge advantage because the biggest thing that weve seen of incoming freshmen of why they're not ready to enter college level work in English has been a deficiency in their skills to do expository reading and writing, reading and writing from academic texts, and that has been our focus through EAPE and through our professional development and 12th grade interventions, and that is a much stronger emphasis throughout the common course standards from the early elementary grades on, direct instruction and expository reading and writing. So we see this as a huge step ahead for us in our work with college readiness. We alsoI'm almost out of time heresee this as an opportunity to really strengthen as we make these changes and pre-service in either programs to really strengthen our preparation for future elementary teachers, specifically in Science as I just said in the earlier session and the excitement of Science teaching to not just give them more Science content but prepare them better to be excited scientists and excited teachers of Science. And to impact as we do all of these things, not just the amount of clinical placement that future teachers get out in the schools but the quality of clinical placement where those classrooms are and the teachers that our future teachers will be working with. So thanks, did I exceed? [Laughs] Dennis Bartels: [Laughs] [Applause] Dennis Bartels: Thank you Beverly very much. So Matt, your 3 minutes. Matt Lonner: So I come today embracing technology. I have my wireless communication in my right hand and the power of my content in my left hand. So this is 21st century for you. I guess my role on this panel, I'm neither an educator nor a scientist or an engineer, but I'm here to make a pitch for business. 1937, Chevron was exploring for oil in 14 feet of water in the Gulf Coast. Today, were discovering and bringing to our economy oil thats discovered 6,000 feet below the earths surface and 30,000 feet below the oceans floor. Now thats technology, comparable to anything youve seen today, comparable to the presentation on the Mars Rover, now thats pretty exciting stuff. And so when we look at NGSS and Common Course Standards, what were looking for is applied real world knowledge connected to application of all disciplines of STEM and non-STEM disciplines into the workforce. All students, regardless of whatever career they may take on. I thought it was very insightful this morning the discussion or the comment that was made about how many of us are taking on our second job that has skills that we were never prepared for when we looked at preparing ourselves for our first job and I think its true for me and I think its probably true for everyone of us here. These are real world problem solving techniques to go beyond your particular career as an engineer or a scientist. The other thing, I think thats important to recognize and thats important for our company, when we interview kids coming out of college, young adults, what do we want out of them? Again, what does problem solving mean? Can they identify it in the first place? Can they identify a solution? Can they optimize that solution and can they assess that solution at the end of the day? Can we promote trial and error in a safe environment? So that when it really comes down to it, when you do have to drop 25 miles or 24 miles from the sky in a parachute, it works perfectly. And I think that the paradigm shift in education is not only about problem solving but failing in a safe environment. Changing and shifting from a world of rote memorization and having encyclopedic knowledge to the knowledge that you can apply again to real world settings, and thats what we want to see at Chevron and thats why were participating today, we look forward to taking any questions. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: Thank you Matt. Excellent. So I'm going to start with a couple of questions but I want you to get ready with your questions here momentarily. But I like to start with this; weve had standards before, what makes these different? What make these standards different? Helen Quinn: Okay. Ill try one answer. I think there are many answers. I think both Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards embody a shift in the way a classroom works, away from teacher as information giver and towards students as learners working together. This caused among students in the classroom coming up and teacher talk going down. Thats a huge change particularly from what weve been doing these last few years, and having that change happen across the whole subject area. So it was a change of school culture and not just in one subject area is really, really important. Phil LaFontaine: Well then I think also, as you kind of think about where we are today, you can go on your portable whatever and you can punch in the question you want as we were seeing in the video this morning, and there's the answer. Its not about today and for our kids future. Were trying to get kids to be prepared for the future and its not about just knowing the information, its about what you do with it. And so what is so exciting and unique about the NGSS standards which is and about Common Core, and about the English, the ELA and the Math, its really trying to get kids to think about what's the information I have and now what do I do with it. And then when you start looking at the NGSS and you have the crosscutting concepts, think about, you know, when youwhen they sent Curiosity to Mars, what were they looking for? They were looking for biological evidence but they're also looking for what else do we see that we can understand. So one of the pictures that Dave was showing me the other day, he was showing me a picture of a riverbed that has no water in it. And he says, What do you see? and you see round pebbles and you see layers, you see all kinds of stuff. And he says, So where do you think this picture is? Well it was obviously in Mars, and yet I knew that it was a riverbed because of the patterns that I had seen here on the earth. And so thats what we have to do. We have to get our kids to have the curiosity to go forward but we have to give them the tools and thats the practices, and then its also those crosscutting themes because you need something to hang your hat on when you dont know what's going on, you have to start looking for something that you do know about and thats what those crosscutting themes really do for you. Dennis Bartels: Terrific guys. Bruce Alberts, former president of the National Academy of Science, who I think dedicated his 12 years to make STEM education his number 1 priority at the academies. As a view that unless the assessment change with the standards, nothing else matters, and I know thats a view that many, many teachers and other educators share. Where are we with addressing this student assessment question with regards to the standards? Helen Quinn: At the very beginning. Okay, so the academy has another committee which is be informed which is asking exactly that question if this is what learning should look like. What should assessments look like in order to be measuring that kind of learning and its clearly different from assessments that are measuring memorization because were asking for performance, were asking students to take knowledge and apply it. Thats what it says in NGSS. And its not as easy to measure and therefore, the measurements will not be to use a technical term that the [inaudible] as reliable, and were going to have to figure out how to live with that in order to measure what really matters rather than making what's easy to measure what matters. Dennis Bartels: Its not as easy and its not as cheap. The new standards when they came out [Applause] Dennis Bartels: --which were some fabulous performance assessments but the problem there, is there were $24 per student administration where a Scantron are pennies per student. How does a State thats broke get around this? Helen Quinn: Well we have technologystill trouble Matt Lonner: You know, I think we also though have a very objective measure of what's success looks like in this country and again, the process of trial and error does not jive very well with our notions of a successful student, either teachers or parents or educational communities, notion of what success looks like. My son and I made a pinhole camera on National Pinhole Camera Day last year, and yes there is such a thing and his photographs look, you know close your eyes if youre watching or listening somewhere, they look terrible, but the effort was 100% successful because he understood how aperture works. He understood how light reflects. That was a successful project but at school, the questions were about the picture, the quality of the picture, and its no different from the memorization on a Scantron. I dont know about you, I walk into my boss office and I've never once heard, Matt, this is a closed-note question. [Laughs] Matt Lonner: Its not how the world Helen Quinn: Yeah, so we have to be able to make more realistic kinds of experiences be the ones that were measuring with, not the ones that dont count in the real world. Matt Lonner: I think thats right. I think what's exciting about NGSS is its now making a very direct linkage to workforce needs. What happens on the job whether you're an engineer or whether you're a welder? Dennis Bartels: Right. And I hear you saying something else, which iswell lets explain the fronts here that were working on simultaneously. What about going out there to the community perhaps lead by corporate voices that say, Hey listen, all thats important isnt necessarily measured on the current test, what about having community displays or what really counts and actually a conversation is that we care about these other kinds of skills and traits as well. It is possible to sort of open up public accountability to be more than just tests. Matt Lonner: Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously I think the panel should speak to it more eloquently than I can, but it also goes to how we, you know, evaluate teachers. How do we make that connection to the university level of 40% of our students need to be remediated at the UC system. I mean, these are the best and the brightest, right? These aren't students like me, these are really good students [Laughs] Matt Lonner: --and they're still not ready as Beverly was talking about, so how was the UC system going to evaluate students objectively coming in to make sure that they're really ready. So it really is a fairly monumental shift but I think the NGSS puts everyone on the right path at least it had that conversation. Dennis Bartels: Great. So I know we havewere still waiting for the California Standards to come in and be reviewed and declare where we stand was regards to the national ones. What is it that's possible to do right away? They're published, they're out, we kind of know the direction were heading in and there are things that we can do in the system already to jump on? Phil LaFontaine: Well I think in K12, the first thing that you need to start thinking about is less about memorization and more about doing. I mean, one of the conversations about assessment, every once pinning their whole existence on the last test of the last day or whatever of the school. What happened to formative assessment? What happened to teachers really assessing students knowledge as they go along so that the end of the day, its not, Oh geez, now we got to go back and remediate for all of this. So I was really thinking about that but what can you do today, its really to start think about how can you take some of these crosscutting concepts? How can you take some of these practices and really start teaching it rather than going to the first chapter of your textbook and teaching the scientific method, which we all note, scientists dont do but we all keep teaching the 7 steps, take that chapter, throw is away and more or less start thinking about what can we really do and what are the real world experiences we were talking earlier with one of the teachers and thinking about what are those big questions that kids really want to know? How can you take what the standards is saying and ask a question thats going to lead the student to the information that you're looking for. Dennis Bartels: Geez, I was only taught 5 steps when I was in school. I wonder which 2 I missed. Phil LaFontaine: We added a couple more. Dennis Bartels: Yeah, absolutely. Trish or Beverly, do you want to talk about from your perspectives? Beverly Young: Well I would just add to what Phil said about, your question was what can we do now while were waiting for it, you know, for those who are out in the schools, you know, not very many schools are waiting. There's a lot of professional development going on already. There's a lot of workshops being held on the common core, on the development of the frameworks, the CSU, the Center for Advancement of Reading has been contracted by the Department of Education to draft the first English language arts framework and were already in process on that. There's a lot of work already going on and so I think its not a question of waiting for it to come. I think the big challengewell there's a lot of challenges. I serve on smarter balances 9 member executive committee and the issues that are involved in developing it, K12 assessment that is computer-adaptive and sensitive to the new standards and is performance-based and includes writing and well indicate college readiness for all across the country when you consider every higher end system pretty much has its own standard of readiness. The issues are huge and one of the ones just facing California is just our timeline that the assessment is meant to be in place 2 years before the new curriculum materials are meant to be in place. Thats a little odd so were going to have to work with all of that the best we can and be patient for the new curriculum to sort of take effect before we judge the new assessment. Helen Quinn: Actually I think thats one of the things a network like this can prepare people for, right? People are used to having reports of the school is in what they are compared to last year. Well if were changing the kind of testing were doing, we cant expect the schools to be going up in the transition period and having the time to go through a transition and get to the point where everythings in place before you judge whether this was a good transition or a bad transition is going to take voices of business and voices outside the school system, defending the school system, undertaking this transition. Dennis Bartels: Trish, you have the last word on this. Sorry Phil. Trish Williams: Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts. One is, when I hear us talk about what's in the Next Generation Science Standards and how they're different, I do just want to confirm that there's still content knowledge in those, and what it sounds like sometimes I remember the kind of whole language phonics kind of wars, and it sometimes sounds like its all about process and not about knowing something, but you have to know things in order to be able to then work with them to design or experiment. So my understanding is that it is a balance of those two and which is a balance we havent had in the past, so thats getting affirmed. The other thing about assessments is there's the technical issues that you're talking about Beverly about do you create those kinds of assessments that do all those things. There's also going to be the State Funding and Policy Issues, you mentioned Dennis that they're more expensive. There are people meeting and talking and working on maybe a totally different way to design the State Testing System so that it wont be every single student takes every single test exactly the same way at every grade level that it might be somethis is all theoretical and just in the planning stages-- Dennis Bartels: Its called Sampling guys. [Laughs] Trish Williams: --but it might be that there are some problems that every student in a subject, in a grade would take and then there are others that would be a matrix sample kind of thing and that would be a way to get both State level data on accountability of schools and how things are going as well as individual student data. There's one other point that I want to make about what you were talking about the teachers and about the schools going to an adjustment period. This is going to be a huge adjustment period and this relates back to your question about how was it different now from what it was like when we first introduced academic standards in California early 1990s. When we first introduced them, there was a tremendous resistance among educators and the primary reason, this is my opinion so there may be other opinions here, but the primary reason we introduced State Academic Content Standards is because before that time, every single district could teach what it wanted at every grade level. There was no consistency. You might move from the bay area to San Diego and your kids in the same grade but what they're learning is totally different. So what it did was standardized what was supposed to be learned in each subject in each grade, but it came along with it and that felt like teachers and educators that their autonomy was being taken away, and then it came along with a fairly prescriptive and burdensome curriculum adoption process that a lot of educators also resisted. So it was slow in kind of getting adopted because it was new, really new and a lot of resistance to it. This, they already know what standards are. Theyve got the idea of standards. They're with all that, the educators are with standards and with assessments. And now that they're finally with that system, its all being changed. Mike Kirst does a presentation on this where his key thing is almost everything will change in the next 2-4 years. And the other part about it is that there's a great deal of ambiguity about in what ways it will change. There are general directions known. There are kind of some general theories and accepted kind of we know, you know, were going to have this performance assessment system but exactly what its going to look like is not known, exactly how thats going to fit in with the States accountability system which justwe just got the opportunity to change 3 weeks ago. Thats not known how teachers are going to have the funding to do professional development, thats not known. And so one of the things I see is that not only I agree with the public needs to be careful about giving room for schools to adapt to all of this as it starts unfolding, but I also, when I attended the 2-day meeting that you had recently getting stakeholder input on Next Generation Science Standards, I attended a workshop or a discussion group they had on accountability. And the educators that were in that workshop could not imagine a different system. When asked, what do you think would be a good assessment for Science Standards? They would say, Well how will it count in the API? So its almost like its too engrained and there's a great deal of anxiety in the field over what is going to be the direction and how will it impact us personally. There's also a lot of excitement I saw on that meeting, tremendous excitement about Next Generation Science Standards, but how it fits in with the assessment and teacher accountability and school accountability and where will they have the support to grow into this new system is ambiguous and leaving educators anxious. Dennis Bartels: So now its your turn. I know this is probably the most policy-oriented talk that were going to have today but I also want to point out the policy is a small numbers game, and what I mean by that is for a lot of people who are not in the political system, they actually dont know that its usually a very small group of people, six or eight people for instance, they did a study of the reading first initiative at the federal level from 2003 and found out that it was seven people, seven people who wrote that law, and they werent anybody you knew. Here I think you have a few of the small numbers of people who are going to help decide what happens when all these things are right now are still a little bit fuzzy and still a little bit ambiguous. So here's your chance to ask questions. I saw one in the corner and then well go here. Audience: I just wondered on what your comments onwhat the infrastructure going to look like before the smarter balance assessment as far as computers, bandwidths, and hardware Beverly Young: Smarter balance has released their set of technical specifications for what types of computers and tablets and bandwidth and everything else that schools and sites well need. Now, how the department and local districts and counties are going to determine sort of what their capacity is now and what they need to meet those specifications is still not determined. Phil LaFontaine: And there was a study that was done recently on the ability or the capabilities of districts and schools to do a computer-based program. Unfortunately, I dont know the answer to what that is but it is a major concern as to how this is all going to play through and thats kind of, you know, thats kind of the anxiousness that were all kind of facing at the moment. Beverly Young: Theres somethingthe results of what you're talking about Phil are available on the Smarter Balance website where they did a state by state determination of capacity and its up there somewhere, every State has a percentage of sort of what they think they currently could do, what's going to be obsolete, what they're going to need to replace. Dennis Bartels: Okay. Lets go here to Nancy and then over here. Audience: I wouldfirst of all, I would like to thank Chris and Dennis for this spectacularly well-informed panel, its wonderful. Let me follow it up with sort of a hard follow-up question. Can you give us any reassurance that this is going to move forward regardless of the outcome of the Presidential Election? And can you give us any reassurance that these reforms will not repeat the pattern in which richer schools and more high performing schools succeed in this difficult process of implementation and poorer schools like schools that dont have Chevron to weigh in, are going to be left behind. Dennis Bartels: Great questions. Who wants to take the first response? [Laughs] Helen Quinn: Ill take the first part of the question. Thats why I said national but not federal, right? So this is really a State decision and whether it moves forward in California is going to be a California decision that is up to the State Board in the long run and in the adoption process for Science, there's already been some adoption for English language Arts and Math. But the other piece is where are the dollars coming from to doto buy the curriculum materials, to do the teacher professional development to put all the pieces in place, and the amount of federal dollars will certainly depend on the election outcome. The amount of State Dollars will depend on the California or election outcome [Laughs] so there are certainly things that do hang on the elections. Phil LaFontaine: Lets kind of think about this, you know, in the State of California, our budgets not so great. So its kind of like the analogyits like the analogy I like to use is, the house is burning down but what were all trying to do is remodel the kitchen, the living room and the study all at once. So to say what that point is that everyone, all stakeholders have to be involved in making sure that the poorer schools do not get left behind. Were trying to at the State level build as many stakeholder connections to foundations, to businesses, to whoever, Rotary Club, were going to have to all work together to try and make this happen for our kids, and because the house is burning down. Matt Lonner: If I can just add to the latter part, I wont touch the first part of that question but to the latter point of that question, you know, we talk about sharing best practices and return on investments, and capturing efficiencies and at the end of the day, its going to be really critical in a cost constrained world that we are able to identify first and adopt the best practice that do exist, you know, for those of us, for those of you who are familiar with the STEM School, which has 24 academies and is being held as one of the greatest schools in the country, and they very well be, but at the cost of 91 million dollars. Until we have a discussion about the return on that investment, its impossible to, in a vacuum, evaluate it is a success story or not because you cant replicate that everywhere. And so I think that its going to be coming upon all of us for the State Networks, working with other State Networks and within the States to look at what really works and try to avoid sort of the lone ranger approach to identifying the best solution for my district. There are in fact, I think best practices that will exist to bring the NGSS into reality and we need to share those and take advantage of them without ego. Dennis Bartels: Yeah and with regards to the equity part of the question, let me bring up a point that hasnt been raised just yet, and its all from what that we overlooked that we forget that California has amazing assets that most States are just waking up and discovering right now which is the support that weve been putting into after school. And if you look at the after school in the informal community, those programs are set up first to serve title one neighborhoods and schools. So those programs already exist exactly where we need them, and I would venture to say especially at the elementary level that some of the best Science experiences and frankly some of the only Engineering experiences exist in that other three hours of the day and if you want to get serious about this thing, we have to stop thinking about the formal and the informal, two separate things and say, weve got the kids from 9 to 6, what the heck are going to do with them? [Applause] Dennis Bartels: Sorry, thats mine. I've got my soapbox in, so now I'm [Laughs] Nancy, and well go over here. Audience: So maybe thats [inaudible] so the State board of Education has the opportunity to adopt, consider the Next Generation Science Standards, is there a risk? Helen Quinn: Yes. [Laughs] Trish Williams: Is there a risk in what way? In any decision made? Audience: I think thats where I'm going. I think we all know the risk for future generations. I'm talking about this decision that the Trish Williams: Yes. Well, let me see if this answers your question. I think every decision over the next two years thats in front of the board related to the standards including the fact that we have the opportunity to relook at some of the Math Standards and to adopt the Anchor Standards in career readiness as well as to modify, reject or adopt the national, the Next Generation Science Standards as well as to agree on what the accountability system next one ought to have in it as well as to adopt curriculum frameworks and make decisions about digital materials versus hardcopy materials. I think from my standpoint, all of them have risks. They are all important. There's not a single one of those things I just mentioned that isnt important to the State, 6.2 million K12 students, 330,000 teachers, 1,000 districts, 8,000 schools. There's not one of those decisions that isnt important. So there is risk in rejectingthis is just my personal opinion okay, as an individual state board member. There would be a risk in totally deciding to reject Next Generation Science Standards. I personally can imagine it in California. This is a very thoughtful State Board, thats my perception of the people I serve with. Our really hardworking CDE and thoughtful CDE, they will want to have the best possible standards but are always aware of how hard, how difficult the implementation might be and that way in of do you go for the best and what do you consider to be the best versus being held back by fear of not having enough money and instead trying to look for a creative way to solve that problem rather than the old ways of oh we just dont have enough money then lets not do it. But I hear CDE often saying, Were going to try a different strategy for this instead of doing professional development the way weve done it in the past. Heres another idea, we could do it this other way instead and still reach enough teachers. So I guess what I'm saying is yes, any decision that is made by the State Board on all of this is risky and yet I think, I personally feel compelled to move forward and have always been half glass full kind of gal, and I want California to have the very best standards and not to back off and not to give up. Dennis Bartels: Great. Great answer. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: Weve got a question over here. Audience: I'm a community college guy. We educate technicians in the STEM area, and I get the message about real world applied skills, but the reality is weve lost the shop curriculum from our high schools, do you see within the Next Generation Science Standards, a way to recapture those applied experiences like electronic circuits, like [inaudible] and like computer networks that enable these middle skill jobs to have a preparation and not just look at the university as the only outcome for the Science Standards. Dennis Bartels: Great, great question. Helen Quinn: There's a small piece in the Science Standards, in the framework, which is the inclusion of Engineering as part of the sort of the practices of doing Engineering Design and a small piece of knowledge about what you need to know in order to engage in that practice. Now, the next piece of your question is about how that rolls out in career and Tech Ed in the high schools as well as in Science courses because there is no prescription where the studentsone of these things just that all students should learn these things. So that is again a decision at the State on district level as to what serves the majority of students best and I think if people have been talked about learning and other pathways through high school in this meeting, those pathways are an attempt to bring back some of what you're talking about there. But I think its a big loss particularly for the students who were practically oriented and the framework brings back only a small piece of it. Dennis Bartels: You know, its a fabulous point. I'm sensitive to it simply because I've watched something quite amazing happened with this Maker Movement. And those of you who know the Make Community or the Maker Movement and see the 180,000 people who show up at the San Mateo fairgrounds to show off stuff that they made in their garages, boys and girls. Its a really remarkable thing and I think part of it is yearning for returning at least part of the curriculum back to the intelligence in your hands, and how that all sort of fits together when you fail at something, you have to figure it out and make it work again. I think its something really critical and important to that and I know that the Make Community and a lot of other organizations including Exploratorium are now working with both after schools, out of school, and in-school to see if in fact we can bring at least some of the work and there's a fabulous school in San Francisco called the Tinkering School, a guy named Geever has put together, has a fabulous charter model how you can build the whole curriculum around this whole notion of Make. We have one more time for one more question. Audience: So as a Electrical Engineer recently turned teacher, please forgive me if I dontI've only been teaching for about 2 years, so please forgive me if I dont understand the big picture yet. But I have a quick comment and a question. The quick comment being, I completely appreciate that you guys talked about how there's also this after school and thats a great place that we can do all these things that we might not be able to do in the classroom, but again from the equity standpoint, I dont think that a lot of kids have access anything after school, let alone the will to attend it and so focusing back on the classroom, I've worked in the PBL school, I'm already sold onwe got new things on our hands and all that, but what scares me is I look at the drafts and the Science Standards, because I think, okay, I can schedule a curriculum the traditional way and I can say these kids will get exposure to these things. When I do it the process way, and were doing things with our hands, its organic. Some things were going to do in great depth, some things were going to completely have not time for because students totally enjoy these things. So when you got to design the framework, do you allow for that flexibility that there may be a lot of depth in some things while completely missed the others. Trish Williams: Its my understanding that the standards are fewer and deeper and there's not supposed to be as much to cover which is theoretically supposed to give you more time to cover, the fewer. And I think that the decision in your own district about how you are able to structure your time in your own school. There isthats not a State Level decision, that would be a district and school district decision using various strategies like block scheduling or you know, other kinds of things. Its also my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong on this is that for the performance based assessments and I know that they're not done in Science but in Math that there is thinking that some of them will be longer and take longer to do and there are fewer actual test items so that there can be more length of time on some. So that is something that people are aware of. I cant tell you that there is aI know an exact solution for you but this concept is part of the thinking that has gone in to all of this. Dennis Bartels: Terrific guys. Great session. Great panel. [Applause] Dennis Bartels: So I just want to thank Helen and Phil and Trish and Beverly and Matt. I think you got us started some wonderful feedback and interactions. I hope these conversations continue in the hallways and further out as we go but thanks once again for offering us your insights Trish Williams: And big kudos to Chris Roe for what CSLNet does in California, great work. [Applause]
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