How state guidance causes confusion and what SEAs can do to fix it
Over the last five years, we’ve worked with many state agencies to understand state-level instructional coherence and support them in strengthening their guidance, support, and accountability measures for schools and school systems. We found that high volumes of well-meaning state improvement efforts often advance compounding, conflicting guidance and priorities for school and system leaders.
On August 27 at 2:00 p.m. ET, Jess Box, senior director of state consulting services, and Emily Freitag, CEO and co-founder of Instruction Partners, are hosting a live briefing on our recent white paper, The State of Instructional (In)Coherence. In this interactive session, they’ll share what we’ve found about the conflicting messages states send about how to improve instruction—and offer concrete steps states can take to ensure they’re ready to implement a clear, unified strategy that improves instruction and student learning.
Register to:
- Dig into the major findings outlined in our recent white paper, The state of instructional (in)coherence
- Learn about six distinct, and often conflicting, approaches to instructional improvement that SEAs advance
- Discuss steps SEAs can take to improve coherence
About the white paper
We know alignment work is challenging for any large, bureaucratic institution, but we’ve seen state agencies clarify priorities for schools and systems and align their required processes and tools to support these priorities. Based on our work with SEAs across the country, this white paper highlights how conflicting approaches to instructional improvement show up in state guidance—and offers clear steps leaders can take to build greater coherence and improve student learning.
Haven’t read the paper yet? We’ll send you a copy when you register to get started.
Your hosts
Jess Box
Jess is a seasoned instructional leader with experience working at the state and district levels as well as working in nonprofits to provide strategic instructional support to district and state leaders. Most recently, she served as a member of EdReports organizational leadership team and led the scaling of the organization’s partnerships work from an emerging to core organizational priority. She led a team to expand EdReports’ services to support states and districts to raise awareness of the need for high-quality instructional materials, lead smart adoption processes, and conduct quality local curriculum reviews. Jess’s passion for education began as a 4th-grade teacher in Washington DC.
Emily Freitag
Before co-founding Instruction Partners, Emily Freitag was the assistant commissioner of curriculum and instruction for the Tennessee Department of Education. In this role, she oversaw K–12 core academics including standards, assessment design, instructional materials, and educator training and support. She led a collaborative effort to train more than 65,000 teachers and leaders during this time in a peer-led, content-based approach, and Tennessee saw increases in student achievement on both the NAEP and state tests. For five years before coming to Tennessee, Freitag managed Teach For America’s DC and Connecticut regions. She fell in love with education teaching 7th-grade math in a rural community in Louisiana.