The Cal-PASS Initiative: Curriculum Alignment Efforts in California

1. The Cal-PASS Initiative: Curriculum Alignment Efforts in California California Partnership for Achieving Student Success www.calpass.org “Success at Every Level”

2. Overview of Today’s Presentation • What is Cal-PASS? • Examples of faculty-driven work • English Curriculum Alignment Project (ECAP) • Aligning Curricula and Career Education for Student Success (ACCESS) • Demonstration of SMART Tool “Success at Every Level”

3. Defining the Issue - This issue is a lack of alignment across educational segments - High school faculty are charged with ensuring that students graduate with the skills and knowledge identified in the State’s standards - Yet students enter postsecondary education unprepared to do college-level work • Cal-PASS uses data to drive discussions among faculty across segments to align high school exit expectations with college entrance expectations and create innovations to ensure students are prepared for postsecondary work “Success at Every Level”

4. The California Partnership for Achieving Student Success (Cal-PASS) - Began in 1998 in response to the need to know how students do as they transition from K-12 to community colleges and/or four-year segments - Includes K-12 schools, colleges and universities • 29 universities (includes some private universities) • 110 community colleges • Over 7,600 K-12 schools - Over 360 million student records • Over 60 regionally-based Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) “Success at Every Level”

5. Student Data: What Kinds of Data are Collected? Student Demographics Demographic and status info, County, District, School Course File Enrollment information Course grades Test File CST CAHSEE Award File Diplomas, degrees, certificates Custom File Anything (e.g., flag separate SLCs within a school) “Success at Every Level”

6. Cal-PASS FERPA Compliance FERPA compliant Data are anonymous: personal identifier information is removed or encrypted Data are encrypted: locally run program encrypts and validates data prior to transmission Controlled access: access is defined by the users’ login Servers in secure, Level IV data center with firewall and controlled access Security document available at www.calpass.org “Success at Every Level”

7. Cal-PASS System at a Glance

8. Making Cal-PASS Work: Professional Learning Councils • English • Mathematics • Science • Career Tech Ed • Counseling • ELL/ESL “Success at Every Level”

9. Data Develop &ImplementInnovation ProblemIdentification FacultyWisdom EvaluateInnovation AbandonReviseScale-up Making Cal-PASS Work: Professional Learning Councils “Success at Every Level”

10. English Curriculum Alignment Project (ECAP) Project Goal: Align K12 to college English curriculum by including expository reading and writing skills in 9th to 12th grade

11. ECAP Introduction • English faculty from a Cal-PASS Professional Learning Council (PLC) • Started in 2005-06 • Includes faculty professional development to create expository text lessons, and implementation of those lessons in the classroom

12. Aspects of ECAP K12 teachers: • Attend formal summer training (e.g., RIAP) • Work in faculty grade-level teams to develop understanding of and ability to create expository text lessons • Consult with K-12 and college mentor teachers throughout the school year • Implement lessons in their classrooms

13. ECAP Outcomes • Faculty from 5 high schools are implementing ECAP • 70% of teachers said they increased their use of expository text because of ECAP • Jump in college-level English enrollment and success levels • Anecdotal student reports

14. ECAP Student Reports Thank you so much for teaching us how to analyze and chunk nonfiction pieces. Our 1st essay is based on two articles and we were assigned to ‘mark them up’ . . . If it wasn’t for your class I would be completely lost . . . My instructor talked about using ethos, logos, and pathos in our papers and I was one of the few who knew what they were. I can’t thank you enough for integrating these important college concepts into you class! My first college paper is due this Friday. Let me just say that you were right about structuring an essay…what I learned my senior year has greatly contributed to my success so far. Charting the text exercises were a huge help! Your senior classes will thank you when they get here!

15. The ACCESS Initiative Aligning Curricula and Career Education for Student Success A statewide curricula alignment and contextualized learning initiative “Success at Every Level”

16. ACCESS – Literature Support “…the coursework between high school and college is not connected; students graduate from high school under one set of standards and, three months later, are required to meet a whole new set of standards in college.” • Kirst & Venezia, Stanford Bridge Project • “…teachers and students must be immersed in contextual teaching and learning…Tech Prep is one of the most successful frameworks for contextual teaching and learning, and can help educators bridge the gap between what is often static classrooms with bored, ‘tuned out’ students—and what should be—classrooms alive with dynamic students actively engaged in learning.” - Center for Occupational Research and Dev., 2009 “Success at Every Level”

17. The ACCESS Initiative • Secondary and post-secondary faculty from thirteen regions collaborating in Cal-PASS PLCs to: • align 11th grade through transfer-level math and English curricula • embed Career and Technical Education (CTE) assessment examples into curricula to contextualize learning for students “Success at Every Level”

18. The ACCESS Initiative • The newly aligned, contextually relevant, and collaboratively developed curricula will be published in Curricula Guides that will: • serve as a resource to inform teacher practice and improve student outcomes • serve as a resource to inform policy and administrate decision-making • Funded through partnerships between Cal-PASS, the Hewlett Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, the Girard Foundation, and the Haas Jr. Fund “Success at Every Level”

19. ACCESS Initiative Outcomes • Develop entrance and exit competencies for ACCESS courses of interest • Create model assessment examples; include embedded contextualized CTE examples • Demystify application of CTE subject matter in math and English classes • Show how sequential courses within a discipline are currently aligned or misaligned; recommended how to align the curriculum “Success at Every Level”

20. ACCESS Initiative Outcomes, cont. • Create a curriculum map from 11th grade through community college transfer-level coursework • Draft curriculum guides, which include all of the components above, as faculty resources to inform their daily practice of teaching • Apply what we learn to make systematic improvements to California’s fragmented educational systems “Success at Every Level”

21. The ACCESS Initiative • Statewide & Systematic • Utilizes Existing Resources • K12 Content Standards • CC’s SLOs • College Literacy Project – 2002 • EAP Student Preparedness Work • Common Core Standards Initiative • Utilizes Cal-PASS Professional Learning Council (PLC) intersegmental Infrastructure • 26 of 64 PLCs “Success at Every Level”

22. The ACCESS Initiative – Faculty Voice • “I was very surprised to see how the standards are interpreted differently not just between segments but also within segments.” • “This [ACCESS PLC work] opens up your eyes to what is going to happen upstream to students.” • “ACCESS has impacted the way I think about teaching;…it has made me a better teacher” “Success at Every Level”

23. SMART Tool • New Data Access Tool • Found on my.calpass.org • Use to look at student transitions, reflect on success trends, inform conversations about proficiency, etc.

24. Questions & Answers

25. How to Contact Us Michelle Kalina Senior Director of Operations mkalina@calpass.org,(916) 759-2486 Lauren Sosenko Associate Director for Special Projects lsosenko@calpass.org, (562) 743-9304 www.calpass.org