Thread started: Sep 10 2008, 2:02 PM EDT
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A TMP Phase III effort beginning 2009, IF approved and funded, will focus on disseminating, implementing, supporting those most effective/promising elements of the TMP work to date on a broad(er) scale. As we wrap up Phase II, and consider a Phase III, we need to look harder and harder at how our efforts to date are moving toward being sustainable -- after TMP -- in schools and districts and colleges. I reminded myself of the dictionary definition of 'to sustain' which is 'To keep in existence; maintain; to support from below; prolong.' Despite this straightforward definition, we recognize that indicators of sustainability can and will take many forms, and is in general a longer-term process, but the question now is what progress have we begun to see?
The literature talks about district and state policy, school culture, leadership (administrators and teachers), and teaching/classroom factors as main factors impacting sustainability. So...within your local TMP work, where are you seeing movement towards some level of sustainability for select aspects of or all of your TMP-funded initiatives and newly created resources? Some examples may flow from:
-New or increased district /school funding support,
-Broadening, formalizing, or perhaps better targeting aspects of your work,
-Using data to improve and continue TMP-supported efforts,
-Increased levels of teacher and leader buy-in and commitment,
-Adoption of new practices, behaviors,
-Changes to PD,
-and more.
Please share your examples, thoughts and opinions on this important sustainability question.
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RE: Creating Sustainable Math Reform
By: ,
Sep 18 2008, 3:37 PM EDT
Another very interesting and related piece, from a very different perspective, is available on the web at http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/CECoburn/coburnscale.pdf . I think it's critical for us to think in different terms about what we mean by "sustainability" and "getting to scale," to use Richard Elmore's phrase (from 1996 article in Harvard Educational Review that doesn't seem to be available for free on the web--you can see a brief summary at http://www.children.smartlibrary.org/newinterface/segment.cfm?segment=2112). For a more recent perspective from Elmore on these issues and challenges, see http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/30/21elmore.h27.html. I was struck in particular by the concerns he raises about the proprietary nature of many, if not most, innovations conflicting in a serious way with the need to "go public" if reforms are going to be able to go to scale--that's definitely one of the tensions we're trying to negotiate in our TMP work...
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