We are pleased to share the following supplementary readings and resources with you to help enrich and extend your Forum experience. Some resources are included on the CD while others are accessible only via the web at the link provided.

READINGS

These readings are designed to spur your thinking as we look to the future direction of education in this country.

America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future (ETS, 2007)
Our nation is in the midst of a perfect storm-the result of the confluence of three powerful forces - that is having a considerable impact on our country.

School's Out: Get Ready for the New Age of Individualized Education
Here's a thought-provoking article about how "free agency" may rock the school house as profoundly as it has upended the business organization.

Learning for the 21st Century: A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills
This document is a report and mile guide for 21st Century Skills published by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

RESOURCES

Highly Qualified Teachers

State HQT Plans
At this web link you can find your state's revised HQT plan along with assessment letters and reviewer comments by the U.S. Department of Education monitoring teams.

HQT Plan Resources
NCCTQ provides a series of resources for states around HQT, such as answers to the questions commonly asked about revising state highly qualified teacher plans including questions around HOUSSE, model components of revised HQT plans, and drafting an equitable distribution of teachers component including providing evidence of progress.

Secretary's Letter to Chiefs about Phase Out of the HOUSSE Option
On September 5, 2006, Secretary Spellings sent a letter to chiefs outlining the Department's position on the issue of phasing out the HOUSSE option.

IDEA 2004

IDEA 2004 HQT Resources
This website links to several resources including a topic brief that addresses significant changes from preexisting IDEA regulations to the final regulatory requirements regarding highly qualified teachers.

IDEA Regulations
This is a new comprehensive web site entirely dedicated to helping interpret and implement the new IDEA regulations.

Federal Technical Assistance Providers

Regional Resource Centers (RRCs)
This flyer describes the work and services provided by the Regional Resource and Federal Centers Network. The website portal to reach all the centers is at www.rrfcnetwork.org/.

Regional Comprehensive Centers
This flyer provides a colored map showing the federal regional comprehensive centers and national content centers. The website link to each of the individual regional centers and their states' work plans is at www.ed.gov/programs/newccp/index.html.

National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (NCCTQ)
NCCTQ is the new national content center on teacher quality that serves as a resource for the 16 regional comprehensive assistance centers, states, and other education stakeholders. Their goal is to assist in strengthening the quality of teaching-especially in high-poverty, low-performing, and hard-to-staff schools-and for ensuring highly qualified teachers are serving students with special needs.

Directory of TA Providers and Research and Development Centers
This directory is a compilation of technical assistance service providers and research and development centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education. It is intended to be a comprehensive, easily accessible print guide that users can keep at their fingertips for contact information.

TA Provider Placemat
This is a colorful and handy placemat listing contact information for all the Regional Resource Centers, Regional Comprehensive Centers, and the National Content Centers. A web link to the placemat is at http://www.rrfcnetwork.org/content/view/137/192.

IDEA Partnership
The IDEA Partnership is dedicated to improving outcomes for students and youth with disabilities by joining state agencies and stakeholders through shared work and learning.

The Personnel Center
The National Center for Special Education Personnel and Related Service Providers (Personnel Center) works to increase the nation's capacity to successfully recruit and retain special educators, early intervention and related service providers to serve the needs of infants, young children and youth with disabilities and their families.

The IRIS Center for Training Enhancements
The IRIS Center is a national center that aims to provide high-quality resources for college and university faculty and professional development providers about students with disabilities. IRIS seeks to obtain this goal by providing free, online, interactive training enhancements that translate research about the education of students with disabilities into practice.

Other Resources

Teacher Incentive Fund
The purpose of the Teacher Incentive Fund is to support programs that develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems, based primarily on increases in student achievement, in high-need schools. Click here to see who has been awarded these funds. Click here to see recent awards to Texas and Florida announced on May 31, 2007.

U.S. Department of Education Teacher-to-Teacher Website
This website provides resources from the Teacher-to-Teacher initiative including information on summer workshops and the teacher training corps.

Grants Awarded to Develop Highly Qualified Teachers for Students with Disabilities
This October 5, 2006, U.S. Department of Education press release contains information regarding the awarding of grants to institutions of higher education to develop high quality teachers of students with disabilities.

TOOLS

The following tools have been designed to help the work of state teams and to provide you with additional information about the Center for Improving Teacher Quality. Click on the name of the tool to access the tool.

CTQ Resources & Tools

CTQ Fact Sheet
This sheet contains information about the Center for Improving Teacher Quality

INTASC Model Standards
This document contains the full text of the INTASC Model Standards for Licensing General and Special Education Teachers of Students with Disabilities: A Resource for State Dialogue.

Model Standards at a Glance
This document is a shortened-version of the INTASC Model Standards for Licensing General and Special Education Teachers of Students with Disabilities that contains the Core Principles and the implications for students with disabilities.

CTQ's Disclosure policy
This document outlines the Center for Improving Teacher Quality's disclosure policies regarding the use of data collected through CTQ's work and through National Forums.

Teacher Licensure System Overview
This document provides a diagram outlining the relationship of state PK-12 student standards to state teacher licensing standards and the relationships between teacher licensing standards and pre-service preparation, state licensing, and professional development for re-licensing.

PHASES Chart
This Guide for Developing, Implementing and Aligning State Teacher Licensing Standards across the teacher licensing system provides an overview of the phases of policy development along with guiding questions for each phase. It is designed to help state teams address issues across the entire system.

State Team Action Plan Template
This tool is a planning template which can be used to record state team action plans.

Collaborative Teacher Preparation Programs in General and Special Education: An Action Guide for Higher Education and Policymakers
This Action Guide, which is based on a typology of dominant models of collaborative teacher preparation, is designed to provide higher education and state policymakers with an analysis of critical considerations in moving this work ahead to prepare all teachers to work with students who have disabilities. This revised version includes specific examples from colleges and universities and from states that are moving in this direction.

CTQ Alignment Tools

Aligning CTQ Work with Your State HQT Plan
Resources include a Powerpoint presentation and alignment tool to help state teams think about the connections between their CTQ action plan and their state's efforts to craft a revised Highly Qualified Teacher Plan. These resources were unveiled during a CTQ Community Call on October 11, 2006. Click here to find your state's highly qualified teacher plan.

Aligning CTQ Work with Your State Performance Plan (SPP)
Resources include a Powerpoint presentation and alignment tool to help state teams think about the connections between their CTQ action plan and their State Performance Plan. These resources were unveiled during a CTQ Community Call on September 13, 2006. Click here to find your state's SPP Plan.

A Tale of Three States
This tool is used during Pre-Forum Orientation each year at the Forum. It is designed to help state team members become familiar with what state level actions and policies they value and find effective for encouraging and supporting educational reform. (Don't read this ahead of time if you will be attending the 2006 Pre-Forum Orientation for the first time!)

CTQ Community of Practice Tools

Community of Practice Handbook
This new tool from the IDEA Partnership entitled "Community of Practice: A New Approach to Solving Complex Educational Problems" outlines a strategy for state agency personnel to engage stakeholders in shared problem solving.

New Eyes Brief on CTQ
This inaugural issue from the IDEA Partnership discusses how CTQ is using the community of practice strategy to improve teacher quality.

Communities of Practice in Teacher Quality: Bridging the Implementation Gap Between Policy and Practice
This Powerpoint presentation describes why the community of practice is a key strategy in any change process.

Dialog Guide Questions on HQT
This is a resource to help states engage stakeholders in dialog around the HQT provisions in the IDEA 2004 statute.

SharedWork.Org
This one-page flyer contains information about an online shared worksite with a wealth of resources that cannot all be reproduced here. The site is an interactive tool that can be used for: communication among CTQ state teams; the posting of important announcements and a repository of key documents; and, the sharing of state documents and tools. To access the site, go to www.sharedwork.org, create a password, and then click on Improving Teacher Quality Community. Click here for a Powerpoint presentation on how to use the work site.

STEP Newsletter
This document is the July 2006 newsletter from the Standards-based Teacher Education Project based at AACTE. This issue of the newsletter contains articles on collaboration and on the Center for Improving Teacher Quality.