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ProfessionalDevelopmentDiscussion Guidefor the February 2011 issue

By Lois Brown Easton

KappanPhi DeltaKappanservice | research | leadership

Phi Delta

Using this guideThis discussion guide is intended to assist Kappan readers who want to use articles in staff meetingsor university classroom discussions.

Members of Phi Delta Kappa have permission to make copies of the enclosed activities for use in staffmeetings, professional development activities, or university classroom discussions. Please ensure thatPhi Delta Kappa and Kappan magazine are credited with this material.

All publications and cartoons in Kappan are copyrighted by Phi Delta Kappa International, Inc. and/orby the authors. Multiple copies may not be made without permission.

Send permission requests to [email protected].

Copyright Phi Delta Kappa, 2011. All rights reserved.

KEY POINTS

• Before dropping out, potential dropouts exhibit certain “behavioral warning signals (the ABCs ofpoor attendance, behavior problems, and course failure).”

• Increasing the graduation rate requires a systemic solution, based on seven principles.• Leadership at the state level — along with leadership from a private foundation — mobilizes the

effort through already cultivated and new relationships with districts.• An ongoing focus on data through “crucial longitudinal analyses of individual student level

outcomes (and their behavioral predictors from previous years)” prompts candid analysis of policyand practice barriers.

• Active district participation, including self-analysis, leads to systematic attention to the “behavioralearly warning indicators.”

• External support, including development of a systematic framework for a public-health type three-stage prevention model, leads to action.

• Simultaneous policy changes (including how “dropout” and “graduation rate” are defined) andcommitment by all stakeholders to participation in an inquiry-based, continuous learningcommunity are needed to achieve results.

FULL VALUE

Every year, Education Week publishes “Diplomas Count,” a report on national trends related to highschool graduation. The most recent report, Graduation by the Numbers — Putting Data to Work for StudentSuccess (June 10, 2010) shows a slight increase in the number of students who graduate from high school.According to the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (EPE), the “national graduation ratestands at 68.8% for the class of 2007, the most recent year for which data are available” (4).

EPE uses the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) to calculate the graduation rate, which is defined asstudent completion of four key steps: “three grade-to-grade promotions (9 to 10, 10 to 11, and 11 to 12)and ultimately earning a diploma (grade 12 to graduation)” (30). The CPI was established under the NoChild Left Behind (NCLB) Act which counts only high school diplomas as evidence of graduation (noGeneral Educational Development Diplomas — or GEDs — for example). States are required to use thefederal definition to calculate Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

2007 graduation rates are slightly lower than 2006 rates (68.8 in 2007; 69.2 in 2006) but up from a decadeago (1997), when 65.7% of high school students graduated.

Another way of looking at graduation rates is to turn the numbers around. How many students did notgraduate in 2007? 37.2% of potential mortarboard-topped students did not graduate, over a third ofyoung people of high school age. 2006? 30.8% of eligible students. 1997: 34.3% of eligible students.

kappanmagazine.org V92 N5 Kappan PD 1

Working Statewide to Boost GraduationRates By Martha Abele MacIver and Scott Groginsky

Phi Delta Kappan 92, no. 5 (February 2011): 16-20

OVERVIEW OF THE ARTICLE

Key Sentence: We identified seven factors that must be present to build an effective statewide col-laborative effort to increase high school graduation rates.

Around a third of students who could be graduating from high school have not been doing so for over 10years, and “if the trend continues, 1.3 million students will fail to graduate in the class of 2010” (25).

REFERENCE

Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. Diplomas Count: A Report on National Trends Related to High School

Graduation. June 10, 2010.

DEEPEN YOUR THINKING

Choose one or more of these individual inquiry topics for thinking and writing.

1. What do you know about graduation in your school, district, or state? To what extent do you thinkyour school, district, or state has a problem in terms of the number of young people who do notgraduate?

2. Do you know students who have dropped out? What would they list as reasons for dropping out?

3. What kinds of graduation policies are in place in your district or state? For example, how doesyour district or state compute the number of students who graduate? What makes collectinggraduation rate data so difficult? How can these difficulties be overcome?

4. What do you think of the ABCs that alert educators to the potential for dropping out? What otherindicators might point to the possibility of dropping out?

5. What do you think of the three-stage prevention strategies framework? For health care? Foreducation?

6. What do you think of a statewide committee conceptualizing itself as a learning community,engaging in ongoing data analysis and a cycle of inquiry?

EXTEND YOUR THOUGHTS THROUGH ACTIVITIES FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

Activity #1

Work with your colleagues to imagine a statewide approach to dropout prevention. How would youactivate the seven principles the authors describe as essential to increasing the graduation rate?

PD 2 Kappan February 2011 kappanmagazine.org

PRINCIPLE

Leadership

Data

District Leaders

External Support

QUESTIONS

What state-level executive should participate in theeffort? What state foundations might sponsor theeffort? What should be the roles of these leaders?

What data should be collected in your state? Howshould it be collected and analyzed? Who should beinvolved in the analysis?

Which district leaders should be involved in theprocess? What would you want to be sure they did,in terms of involvement? To what extent will self-analysis be a challenge to districts in your state? Towhat extent can you expect districts to be candidabout the issues?

What external support will be needed? Whatresources (both monetary and human) will beneeded? Can districts largely reallocate budgets toaddress the problems?

YOUR STATE’S APPROACH

Activity #2

What are the “hot buttons” for the various stakeholders who might be involved in an effort to improvethe graduation rate in your state? What might motivate them positively (green)? What is neutral(yellow)? What is negative for them (red)?

Motivational Neutral Motivational in in the Positive (Issues They the Negative Sense

Sense Are NotMotivated By)

Positive Neutral Issues Negative Stakeholders Motivators (Nonmotivating) Motivators

Students themselves

Parents

Other community members

Teachers

School-based administrators

District administrators

State policy makers

Others


PRINCIPLE

A Systemic Framework

Shaping the PolicyContext

Commitment by AllStakeholders

QUESTIONS

What kind of framework is needed to improve thegraduation rate? To what extent should it addressschool and district practices and policies that help orhinder the effort to help all students graduate? Towhat extent would a three-stage approach work inyour state?

What incentives for graduation are in place in yourstate? How do these incentives result in accuratereporting of graduation rates? How should the ABCsof prevention be institutionalized? What kind ofreports should schools and districts produce todocument their approach to increasing graduationrates? What kind of funding is needed across thestate?

How can a statewide committee (as well as district-level and school-level committees) avoid the pitfallsof “meetings” and become a learning community?What’s the advantage of doing so? How doesfrequent analysis of data help a committee becomea learning community? How does an inquiry-basedapproach help a committee become a learningcommunity?

YOUR STATE’S APPROACH

APPLICATIONS

This Kappan Professional Development Guide was created with the characteristics of adult learners in mind(Supporting and Sustaining Teachers’ Professional Development: A Principal’s Guide, by Marilyn Tallerico.Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 2005: 54-63):

• Active engagement• Relevance to current challenges• Integration of experience• Learning style variation• Choice and self-direction

As you think about sharing this article with other adults, how could you fulfill the adult learning needs above?

This Professional Development Guide was created so readers could apply what they have learned to work inclassrooms (from Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement,by Robert J. Marzano, Deborah Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2001).

• Identifying Similarities and Differences• Summarizing and Note-Taking• Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition• Homework and Practice• Nonlinguistic Representations• Cooperative Learning• Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback• Generating and Testing Hypotheses• Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

As you think about sharing this article with classroom teachers, how could you use these strategies with them?

More thoughts? Go to PDKConnect.org to discuss this article with others. (First-time users registerat pdkintl.org to set up a user name and password.)


KEY POINTS

• Eagle Rock School is an independent high school for dropouts from across the United States; EagleRock Professional Development Center helps educators from around the world learn about andapply some of Eagle Rock’s strategies for re-engaging students in learning and helping themgraduate.

• Some assumptions about schooling may keep educators from substantively changing their ownschools so that they better serve students.

• Assumption #1: Education is about adults. As a consequence, “most education organizationsoverlook the important role that students could and should play in their own schools.”

• Assumption #2: Students graduate when they have accrued enough credits (seat time hours) tograduate; however, students should “graduate when they demonstrate that they have met . . .expectations.”

• Assumption #3: “Schools need to organize learning according to content areas.” It may be easier todo so, but students learn best when learning is “related to their own curiosity,” which is usually notbound by disciplines.

• Three keys to a system that is not discipline-based are 1) keep “the unit of students small enough tobe managed by a few adults who know students well”; 2) put students in charge of their work towardgraduation (with adult support); and 3) provide lots of choice so that students personalize theirlearning.

• Assumption #4: School doesn’t need to change; however, one look at graduation rates is enough foreducators to know that schools, as they are today for most students, need to change.

FULL VALUE

One of the best-known alternative schools with a public purpose are the KIPP Schools. According to theKipp web site (www.kipp.org), KIPP “is a national network of free, open-enrollment college-preparatorypublic schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities. The name is an acronym:The Knowledge is Power Program. KIPP has 99 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbiaserving more than 26,000 students.

Its chief public purpose is to educate students who otherwise might have no choice about where to go toschool: “Over 90% of KIPP students are African-American or Hispanic/Latino, and more than 80% ofKIPP students are eligible for the federal free or reduced-price meals program. KIPP schools enroll allinterested students, space permitting, regardless of prior academic record, conduct or socioeconomicbackground.”

Another public purpose emanates from its foundation (co-founded by Doris and Donald Fisher, wholaunched The Gap). The foundation’s initiatives include “developing and implementing a number ofprograms designed to surface best practices, to incubate new ideas from inside and outside the network,


Challenging Assumptions: HelpingStruggling Students SucceedBy Lois Brown Easton and Michael Soguero



Key Sentence: Educators can directly address some of the reasons students drop out and seeksolutions to the problem by rethinking some of the curious customs about schooling that have enduredsince the 1880s.

and to pilot initiatives in regions. Recent key areas of focus include 1) developing and supporting leadersat all stages of their careers, 2) using data to understand performance and monitor progress, and 3)enabling sharing and collaboration.”

Like Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, the KIPP schools operate independentlyand have a public purpose. Unlike Eagle Rock, the KIPP schools are charter schools. Data show that“since KIPP began in 1994, 95% of students who finished 8th grade at KIPP have graduated from highschool, and 88% have matriculated to college.”



1. How did the students’ opinions at the beginning of the article resonate with you? Do you know(or know of) students like these? Have they stayed in school and graduated?

2. In your own experience, how many schools actively share what they’re learning with other schools,districts, or states?

3. In what ways does Eagle Rock’s status as an “independent” school help it learn what works withstudents who have disengaged from learning? In what ways does that status hinderaccomplishment of Eagle Rock’s purposes?

4. What “alternative” schools function in your district or state? How are they “alternative,” and whatdo they contribute to the knowledge base about teaching and learning?

5. What other assumptions about school seem to be holding back educators and policy makers frommaking substantive change in education?

6. Why do you think these assumptions operate in today’s school systems? What is needed to changethem?


Activity #1 The change process in schools typically looks something like this:

1. Someone recognizes a need or hears about a new idea.

2. A committee/task force/team is formed.

3. This group explores the need or researches the new idea.

4. This group makes recommendations for change.

5. Educators go to workshops to learn about the change.

6. Educators are expected to implement the change.

Sometimes — but not always — coaches or mentors help educators make the change.

Sometimes — but not always — the change is related to what educators are already doing (alignment).

Sometimes — but not always — something educators are already doing is replaced by what’s new.

Sometimes — but not always — the change becomes embedded in the culture and is not replaced sixmonths or a year later by something new or different.

A process of positive deviance may be a better way to improve schools. Here are the key components ofpositive deviance:


• “Communities already have the solutions. They are the best experts to solve their problems.• “Communities self-organize and have the human resources and social assets to solve an agreed-upon

problem.• “Collective intelligence. Intelligence and know-how is not concentrated in the leadership of a

community alone or in external experts but is distributed throughout the community. Thus thepositive deviance process’ aim is to draw out the collective intelligence to apply it to a specificproblem requiring behavior or social change.

• “Sustainability as the cornerstone of the approach. The PD approach enables the community ororganization to seek and discover sustainable solutions to a given problem because the demonstrablysuccessful uncommon behaviors are already practiced in that community within the constraints andchallenges of the current situation.

• “It is easier to change behavior by practicing it rather than knowing about it. It is easier to act yourway into a new way of thinking than think your way into a new way of acting” (Pascale, Sternin, andSternin 2010).

With your colleagues, think of a change that has recently been made in your school or district. Whichprocess was used — a traditional committee approach or a positive deviance approach? What was theeffect? What would have happened if the other type of process had been used?

REFERENCE

Pascale, Richard, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin. The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s

Toughest Problems. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business Press, 2010.

Activity #2

Assumptions are a product of cognition. They are made on the basis of experience and inference. Here isa simple ladder of inference leading to an assumption:

We can’t count on X. He’s unreliable.

X always comes in late.

X knew exactly when the meeting was to start. He deliberatelycame in late.

The meeting was called for 9 a.m., and X came in at 9:30. Hedidn’t say why.

These are the steps most people use to go from experience to inference and assumptions:

Actions Based on Beliefs

Adopted Beliefs

Conclusions

Assumptions Based on Meanings

Added Meanings

Selected Data

Observable Data & Experiences


With your colleagues, identify some assumptions that might be operating in your environment. Forexample, do you believe that all students can learn? Do you believe that teachers improve their teachingwhen they are engaged in professional learning communities? Trace these assumptions back to observabledata and experiences. How valid are they?

SOURCE: Senge, Peter, Nelda Cambron-McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Bryan Smith, Janis Dutton, and Art Kleiner. Schools That

Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education. New York: Doubleday,

2000.

APPLICATIONS


• Active engagement• Relevance to current challenges• Integration of experience• Learning-style variation• Choice and self-direction








KEY POINTS

• The authors report on an ongoing research project that started in 2004 and involved over 1,000stakeholders across the country plus 8,000 written surveys of principals and teachers in 164 schoolswith nine states.

• One conclusion so far is that “the most central job of school-based leaders is to shape the school’sculture to focus attention unremittingly on student learning.”

• Strong leadership is needed, but not from the kind of heroic leader who single-handedly turnsaround a school.

• Instead, schools need to focus on building “strong cultures in which the many tasks of transformingschools require many leaders.”

• Typical school culture “often gets in the way of change” because people who are isolated are unableto share knowledge and learn together; they are also risk aversive and devoted to “egalitarianism,”which prevents “serious reflection” and results in short-term solutions.

• Three elements of school culture are critical: 1) the ability to engage in deeper organizationallearning, knowledge sharing, and study; 2) a “culture of shared norms and values” includingcollective work, development of common practices, and feedback; 3) a culture of trust.

• These three intermingled conditions are “highly variable” especially in high schools and middleschools that “appear to have a serious leadership variable.”

• The culture affects the adults in a school who, in turn, affect the students in terms of both behaviorand achievement.

FULL VALUE

According to Louis and Wahlstrom, trust is one of the three interdependent conditions for a successfulschool culture. Devin Vodicka, director of curriculum and instruction in the Carlsbad (Calif.) UnifiedSchool District, wrote about four elements of trust in Principal Leadership, November 2006. Theseelements are

• Consistency• Compassion• Competence• Communication

Consistency means “maintaining commitments, adhering to routines, responding in predictable ways tocommon situations, and clarifying expectations.” Compassion means “demonstrating regard for others,”including “simple courtesies,” as well as providing “positive feedback” and showing “genuine caring andempathy.”

Principals as Cultural LeadersBy Karen Seashore Louis and Kyla Wahlstrom



Key Sentence: Changing a school’s culture requires shared or distributed leadership, which engagesmany stakeholders in major improvement roles, and instructional leadership, in which administratorstake responsibility for shaping improvements at the classroom level.


Competency means being reliable in terms of achieving results and meeting goals.

Communication means more than speaking or writing; it means listening, “slowing down and beingpresent.” Vodicka states, “What the leader does not say is often more important than what the leader doessay.” Competency also means “maintaining appropriate confidentiality.”

REFERENCE

Vodicka, Devin. “The Four Elements of Trust.” Principal Leadership 7, no. 3 (November 2006): 27-30.



1. If you are a principal, how do you react to this article? If you are not a principal, think aboutprincipals you know. How do you think they might react to this article?

2. Why does changing a school’s culture require shared or distributed leadership? Why does itinvolve instructional leadership?

3. What experiences have you had with principals who are “turnaround leaders” or heroes?What are the effects of their work? Are they “strong” or “weak”?

4. Principals are sometimes seen as managers. How do you think management aligns with theauthors’ description of principals as effective instruction and cultural leaders?

5. In your experience, how can a school’s organizational culture get in the way of change? Howcan it promote change?

6. What experiences have you had with risk takers who are pulled back into a passive culturewhen they advance new ideas? Do you think Dan Duke’s “crab bucket culture” is commonin education?

7. In your experience, how are the three elements of culture related (A Culture of ExcellentInstruction, A Culture of Shared Norms and Values, and A Culture of Trust)?


Activity #1: A Case Study

Select a facilitator and use the case study discussion protocol from Joellen Killion (personalcommunication) below to discuss with your colleagues, applying what you learned from the Louis andWahlstrom article.

THE PROTOCOL

Purpose: To explore the related issues in a case and consider various perspectives, not to “solve” the case.

STEPS:

Step #1: Preview the case discussion protocol. Stress the goal. Ask participants to use data from the caseto support their responses whenever possible. (2 minutes)

Step #2: Set a few norms with the team, e.g., encourage members to participate, listen to understand,honor the protocol, etc. (2 minutes)

Step #3: Allow participants to read the case. (5 minutes)

Step #4: Ask participants to describe the key elements of this case. This step is just to collect FACTS —


not interpretations or possible solutions. (6 minutes)

Step #5: What problems lie within this case? What are the issues? (6 minutes)

Step #6: What are the beliefs or values of the key stakeholders? (6 minutes)

Step #7: If you were in charge of this situation, what three things would you do and why? (6 minutes)

Step #8: What barriers do you perceive you might encounter? How would you address these barriers? (6minutes)

Step #9: Debrief your work. (4 minutes)

THE CASE STUDY

Ellen Travers (not her real name) became principal of Stockton Elementary School after serving as interimprincipal for six months. The principal she replaced was released by the school district for reasons unknown toStockton’s staff. The faculty was, largely, happy that “one of their own” had been selected to replace the formerprincipal and pleased with what she had done during her interim principalship.

She systematized a number of messy procedures (such as ordering materials), making them easier on her formercolleagues and for herself. She convened a principal’s council composed of leaders from each grade level. She met withthem weekly and shared with them issues she was facing, asking them for advice and, usually, acting upon theirrecommendations. She “ran interference” with the district on a number of issues (including a change in the busschedule that would have reduced preparation time after school). She succeeded in repairing a parent-teacherassociation and could point to increased numbers of parents involved in the school in some way.

Now, as the “real” principal, Ellen was feeling some tension among the faculty, tension she had not felt during theinterim principalship. Colleagues who had become her friends seemed to avoid her and, when talking with her, kepttheir conversation to weather and other neutral topics. Two of her council asked to be replaced. The district wasapplying pressure related to student achievement. The number of parents attending Back-to-School night was lowerthan it had been under the previous principal.

Activity #2

Words that have approximately the same meaning can have connotations that vary widely. Take sharedleadership and distributed leadership, for example. With your colleagues, discuss how the two words mayconvey both slightly different denotations (definitions) and connotations (nuance, implication, emotionalvalue). Which would you rather use in your own environment?

APPLICATIONS




This Professional Development Guide was created so readers could apply what they have learned to work inclassrooms (from Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement,


by Robert J. Marzano, Deborah Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2001).





KEY POINTS

• The author concurs “with the premise that administrative mandates can, and often do, interferewith the learning of both students and adults,” but proposes that professional does not necessarilymean autonomous.

• He provides many examples of professionals “expected to collaborate with others”: pilots, architects,engineers, construction managers, lawyers, and doctors.

• Educators need to collaborate on creating a “guaranteed and viable curriculum,” collect and analyzerelevant data, and have a “comprehensive, balanced assessment process that includes commonformative assessments,” among other things.

• The school needs “to create a systematic process” that benefits all students.• Almost all education organizations and an “abundant” research base support collaboration to “help

students learn at higher levels,” with little support for “volunteerism,” because teachers are not“self-employed” and can be expected to work together.

FULL VALUE

Before Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), teachers collaborated in Quality Circles and CriticalFriends Groups (CFGs) and the business world focused on team learning to exercise system thinking. W.Edwards Deming’s writings led to the formation of quality circles in manufacturing, particularly in Japanafter World War II, and they soon spread to business settings in the United States and into schools.Generally, these voluntary groups cut through hierarchies and focus on data and how to improve thefunctioning of the organization.

Critical Friends Groups started with the Coalition of Essential Schools, whose chairman was the lateTheodore Sizer. Although participation in CFGs is voluntary, member schools of the coalition voted tojoin the network, with at least 80% of the teachers voting for membership.

Peter Senge wrote in The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (1990) and alater book devoted to educational organizations, Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook forEducators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education (2000), about the importance of team learning.In the second book, Senge and his co-authors claim, “Schools are rife with team activity” (p. 73) butrecommend learning and practicing a set of skills related to alignment and dialogue. They do not addresswhether collaboration should be required.

RESOURCES

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday Currency, 1990.

Senge, Peter, Nelda Cambron-McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Bryan Smith, Janis Dutton, and Art Kleiner. Schools That Learn: A Fifth

Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Work Together: But Only if You Want ToBy Rick DuFour



Key Sentence: I simply cannot find any dictionary that defines a professional as someone who cando whatever he or she pleases. Time spent in collaboration with colleagues is considered essential tosuccess in most professions.




1. In terms of what you do in education, how much do you collaborate and in what ways?

2. In what ways do educators collaborate in a school or district you know well?

3. To what extent can you choose to collaborate? To what extent can the educators in a school ordistrict you know well choose to collaborate?

4. How do educators learn how to collaborate? To what extent do teacher and principal preparationprograms prepare educators for collaboration?

5. Are there some aspects of education that require collaboration? What aspects are better attendedto individually?

6. What are the arguments for and against requiring collaboration?

7. To what extent do you agree with the author’s premises and conclusions?


Activity #1

With your colleagues, create a progressive force-field analysis. In the first analysis, consider the benefitsand challenges of collaboration, as follows:

When you have completed this analysis, work together on another one:

Place the two charts next to each other. Do the challenges of requiring collaboration cancel out any of thebenefits of collaboration? Do the benefits of requiring collaboration cancel out any of the challenges ofcollaboration? Discuss.

Activity #2

With your colleagues, think of some movies that feature collaboration. Here are a few:

• Nemo (when the school of fish work together to break out of the net)• Any Robin Hood movie• Any Pirates of the Caribbean movie• Any Star Wars movie• Apollo 13

Benefits of Collaboration Challenges of Collaboration

Benefits of Requiring Collaboration Challenges of Requiring Collaboration


• Steel Magnolias• City Slickers• Driving Miss Daisy• Gandhi• Hoosiers• Any Indiana Jones movie• The Right Stuff• Any Shrek movie

You and your colleagues will, undoubtedly, think of many more (and you may want to consider televisionshows, as well, such as Gilligan’s Island!). Together, discuss what features of the groups made themsuccessful. . . and what features might have hindered success. To what extent were they collaborative? Wasmembership voluntary or required?

See Walter R. Olsen, and William A. Sommers. Energizing Staff Development Using Film Clips. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin

Press, 2006.

APPLICATIONS








About the AuthorLois Brown Easton is a consultant, coach, and author with a particular interest in learning designs —for adults and for students.

She recently retired as director of professional development at Eagle Rock School and ProfessionalDevelopment Center, Estes Park, Colo. From 1992 to 1994, she was director of Re:Learning Systems atthe Education Commission of the States (ECS). Re:Learning was a partnership between the Coalition ofEssential Schools and ECS. Before that, she served in the Arizona Department of Education in a varietyof positions: English/language arts coordinator, director of curriculum and instruction, and director ofcurriculum and assessment planning.

A middle school English teacher for 15 years, Easton earned her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona.Easton has been a frequent presenter at conferences and a contributor to education journals. She iscurrently co-president of the Colorado Staff Development Council.

She was editor and contributor to Powerful Designs for Professional Learning (NSDC, 2004 & 2008).Her other books include:

• The Other Side of Curriculum: Lessons from Learners (Heinemann, 2002);

• Engaging the Disengaged: How Schools Can Help Struggling Students Succeed (Corwin Press,2008) — winner of the Educational Book of the Year Award from Kappa Delta Gamma in 2009;

• Protocols for Professional Learning (ASCD, 2009);

• PLCs by Design: Helping Schools Help Struggling Students (NSDC and Corwin Press, in press).

Easton lives and works in Colorado.

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