The Council of Chief State School Officer's (CCSSO) National Educator Leadership and Training Center (NETLC) will offer a comprehensive technical assistance initiative that focuses on professional development by combining high performance models with training applications in leadership and organizational change management. The goal of this initiative is to assist state education systems to improve and develop effective services and increase leadership capabilities to serve their customers. Performance strategies introduced will be based upon the models of excellence utilized by the business community such as those based on the Baldrige National Quality approach.
In 2001, two school districts and one university received the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence. The success of these three organizations demonstrated that those institutions who received help from the business community and used high performance criteria to implement organization change; enabled their students to increase achievement, realize their educational goals, and effectively join the workforce. Building upon these past accomplishments and state work, CCSSO has formed NETLC with a special congressional appropriation for a program that will provide comprehensive technical assistance to promote the implementation of high performance models in all state education agencies by offering training applications in leadership and organizational change management.
Vision
Our nation's future is inextricably linked to educating every child to become a knowledgeable and productive citizen. The demand that no child be left behind, the desire to empower leaders to improve delivery systems, the need for increased school accountability, and the intrinsic value of equitable student learning are vital to the education of today's students for tomorrow's world. For these reasons, CCSSO's NETLC is committed to supporting the use of Baldrige and other high performance models to align federal, state, and local education initiatives in order to better serve all children. This will be achieved by creating a variety of professional development opportunities and identifying national resources that support high performing systems.
Mission
The mission of NETLC at CCSSO is to assist our nation's educational leaders as they develop, implement, and continuously improve education systems as envisioned in No Child Left Behind. The mission will be achieved by constructing partnerships with key business stakeholders and together, implementing models of excellence to impact American schools and raise achievement for all students. This includes the following:
- promoting the use of Baldrige criteria and other high performance models
- aligning and accelerating educational improvement efforts
- providing various technical assistance and professional development opportunities for educators
- capturing and disseminating successful improvement strategies via physical and electronic mediums
- creating networks to support full implementation of high performance
History
The impetus for this initiative originated from collaborations between education and business leaders who successfully joined resources to implement high performance models, such as Baldrige, to help align educational practices and policies, to increase gains on states assessments, and to transform the landscape of U.S. schools.
The National Alliance of Business (NAB), in 1999, provided technical assistance by creating partnerships with a group of 25 education and business organizations to implement the Baldrige in Education Initiative (BiE IN) to support education improvement efforts in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas. Partnerships were also extended to leaders who embraced high performance philosophies in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, and Wyoming.
Prior to the inception of the NAB initiative, the Baldrige in Education model was authorized by Congress in 1998 to grant eligibility participation to educational organizations. In 2001, two school districts and one university all won the prestigious award.
These examples of participation whether stewarded by NAB, the Baldrige competition, or introducing other high performance models into schools systems, all speak to the possibility for every state, district, and local education systems to implement organizational change with strong leadership support and training.
Project Plan
CCSSO's NETLC will offer a variety of services that will allow SEAs and their constituents a variety of change management and high performance tools:
- Virtual Performance Training Center
- General Education, Leadership and Performance Resource
- Career Center
- Networks and Partnerships
A draft plan for the web site is available here.
Resources
CCSSO's NETLC will provide a number of resources and links for educational leaders to support the implementation of high performance systems.
Project Staff
Lois Adams Rodgers, Co-Chief Operating Officer; Director, State Action for Education Leadership Project (SAELP), loisar@ccsso.org
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