The Accountability and Curriculum Reform Effort or ACRE was a multi-year effort to revamp almost every aspect of curriculum, testing, and instruction managed by the NC Department of Public Instruction.  For some reason, I received meeting notes for the August 23, 2013 ACRE Regroup Meeting.  Now I’ll share a few selections with you!

I copied and pasted all of the “action items” from the document.  Most address messaging/PR.

Action Item – Flip what we are saying and talk about the successes that are not quantitative and are not all tied to test scores – get some messaging out there about how there are other successful things going on that are going to make a difference in the long run – show that this is the right thing for students – We need some positive messages for teachers this fall!

Action Item – Teacher Voices Project – teachers from NC are going to participate in training and even to talk about the Common Core and how it has changed what they are doing in their classrooms – maybe we can use this model to talk about some other components just within our state – create voices for teachers around other programs and initiatives that have been implemented over the last year.

Action Item – Bring back in NCBCE-type focus groups to get the business community more involved and to help with our communication work (let them help carry the message)

Action Item – Need regional support people to be maintained to continue the level of support that has been provided over the last 3 years – what can we do to help LEAs maintain the support even if the people are not there anymore

Action Item – It was noted that questions on the tests were from old standards – there was some misalignment in some cases – at least it was reported and there was concern – Need to follow-up and see where the misalignment was reported and make sure this is addressed.

Action Item – look at different schedule options, the 5-10 day testing window, and tech readiness and see what guidance we can provide to help schools figure out how to schedule assessments and make it work best (and where could there be cost savings)

Action Item – What is missing from the set of reforms underway in the state? Reform with Higher Ed and teacher prep programs; Expectation setting on career and college readiness

There were other notes of interest.

Participants learned that “the expectations [for rolling out new standards] were higher than what was actually realistic”

They worry about the public perception of the imminent drop in test scores.

Fortunately, they appeared to support slowing or delaying the adoption and implementation of Common Core (SBAC) tests.

The participants believe that the release of school grades will produce a “messaging war”

On a positive note, they concluded, “There is not a state solution for everything”