Event ID: 2097824
Event Started: 2/27/2013 1:43:27 PM ET
Please stand by for realtime captions.
[ Captioner on stand by waiting for event to begin. If there has been a change, please contact Caption Colorado at 800-590-4197 or cc@captionedtext.com. Thank you ]
-- Most states have something called educational standards and it's an opportunity for people to know what students are learning at any given time. So for example we have standards assigned to content levels whether that is reading and writing, mathematics or science. In my state we have 11 set the standards. Common core involves two of those but we have standards for content areas and grade levels. Standards define what we expect students to learn at a given time in their program. The challenge has been we've had 50+ standards so when you think about it we were to take a poll how many states are represented here we probably have maybe a minimum of 30 states and the truth is in the past we probably have 30 sets of standards. And sometimes you had more standards depending on how your state is set up. You may have school district out but has third grade standards and has a different district has different standards. The idea behind the -- each state would align with a common set of educational standards. Why are they important? Because they set the framework of what we teach and the framework of what we measure and when we talk about teaching we're talking about instruction and webinar following will get into more details on both instruction and assessment and assessment can be as broad as state [ Indiscernible ] or ultimate -- alternate assessments or inform progress monitoring tools used within the district. Ultimately standards are the core that every thing comes from in terms of what we assess and instruct.
One of these things called the concourse standards or state standards. State lead product and we will talk about who develop these. This was not a federal government initiative. This came as a result of a collaboration of states working together to define clear educational grade level standards and grade level is something you will be hearing today as well as in the future webinars that grade level is an important thing to understand for kindergarten through 12th grade and the common core involves only English language arts and mathematics. So you may ask yourself what about the other content areas and I will let you know what is happening on that level. These are specific to the LA and mathematics in terms of the common core. They were devised by local teachers, principals, superintendents and others brought together so please know that when the standards were developed they do it developed not by the federal government but by national Governors somebody. I will come back to that. What they did is they pull together experts in the field and to have discussions that led to the standards. Who is in charge of it in here we go. The national Governors Association center for best practices and the Council of chief State school officers. What I talked about CCS earlier I mentioned that there were three of us in particular that go to CCS oh division. It's called assessment of special education students and the three involved, Claire and Annette and myself. -- It happens in her other roles with our state department duties Claire from West Virginia -- from North Carolina and Annette from West Virginia and myself in Colorado go to those meetings so we've had an opportunity to see this from its inception forward as people get together to talk about this initiative. The map you see is not a map it talks about which states are involved. It shows the entire country. I will get to the point about which states are involved. The point of this slide is it is not coordinated to the federal government. It's more donated by outside entities because people got together and said how do we work together to make sure that we have this common core. You can understand we are a mobile society and part of the thinking was that we're mobile kids move across one state to the next and do they really have drastically different educational programs as they move from one state to the next. So the goal was to mitigate the fact we are mobile society and also to make sure that we are preparing children so these are developed for all children to be competitive. So who created these standards. The states collaborated. We had both [ Indiscernible ] and special education teachers. We had content experts. A content expert is somebody who is trained in English language arts award mathematics. Also researchers are involved. There were two separate public comment periods where over 10,000 comments were collected. A lot of people have been working on these standards to finalize them and rolled amount and make sure they were making sense across states and across areas. There are two areas we talked about. English language arts and mathematics. When I go over these next slide what you'll see is the content specific to the common quarter state standards and English language arts and math. I want to plant a seed that this will be some of your homework between now and the next webinar is to find out what is happening in your state because your state may have some differences from how this is rolled out. There was states adopting the common core. They have the opportunity to adopt all that but also to do state customization. In my state we don't call it the common core. But the Colorado academic standards. It embraces it and encompasses these components but it's probably not a pure magic. There was an alignment but not a pure magic wording. So when we look at the English language arts each section is divided into strands and you will see we have kindergarten through five and six great you -- 312. Reading writing and speaking and listening and language strands. One thing I like to say from a deaf blindness perspective is that I think it's so wonderful that we're looking at ELA as reading writing and speaking and listening because so much of our work with deaf blindness is focused on communication as we approach reading and writing. So it really make us sure -- it broadens the definition that some people might think of standard reading and writing and it opens the door to include all kids. When they were developing the standards they were looking at college and career readiness and what I did a few nights ago is there's a ton of stuff on the web and you may want to start doing some exploration but Pearson had impressive videos that talked about how they arrived at the standards and the gal who was detailing English language arts talked about they did a backward mapping where they started in college and looked at college textbooks and worked back to high school. What they found especially in the ELA area was the need to focus on complex tasks in a variety of tax. One of the discussions I'm hearing in my state is that people prepare for a state assessment is the fact that we are looking at more and more -- variety of texts that would be built into the state assessment which will be built into the instruction part. Here is reading. It talks about standards one through nine. I won't spend a lot of time on this but you can have a broad sense of what it is. I think it's very important you see where it talks about the national assessment of education progress. They have a line that with their framework. If you haven't heard of NAEP it is something important because it's often called our nation's report card and the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what our kids in the country are doing in subject areas. As the standards were developed I want to reassure you that they did a lot of cross walking with national models. I don't know all these in extreme detail but as I dig deeper I am more comforted that the standards are complied upgraded national level perspective. Here is reading foundation skills so poor categories. And concepts chronological awareness, phonics and word recognition and fluency. When people are talking about the big five you will see that early on these things are being addressed in the reading standards. The one thing I neglected to mention earlier and I will -- reiterated as we go forward is that please understand that the standards are not a curriculum. They are standards that we talked about in that earlier slide and they said for the grade level expectations but it's not a curriculum. Curriculums will be developed as a result of the standards but that's not what the standards do. They merely offer up what to expect students to be learning at these grade levels. You can see a rich opportunity to do good early reading instruction early on. They're not an end to themselves and they also are predicated in differentiated instruction which is something we would all say is incredibly important when we're talking about students with disabilities. Writing. You can see it looks sophisticated and we will -- when we're talking about writing arguments and information and text. These are aligned with the NAEP writing framework so these details going into writing.
This is to give you an idea of what you might expect at your home state. Speaking and listening. Language. Key advances. The writing instruction needed to emphasize the use of evidence [ Indiscernible ] to make an argument. Includes shorter focused research projects and K-12. Students K-12 develop college and career ready skills the written arguments that response to ideas of Vincent Jackson arguments and reading from some notes in terms of as identity per to get explanations on the standards like I said if you go to Pearson you will find nice video clips and will talk about both writing and reading and the math.
Here is our mathematics. The standards lay a solid foundation and hold numbers in addition and subtraction and division infractions etc. And they also go high school middle school as students practice apply math in a way that is more thinking were world issues and challenges. They are working on preparing students to think and reason mathematically. They set a rigorous definition of college and career readiness not by topic by topic by demanding students develop eight depth of understanding ability to apply math to situations. One of the things I think I mentioned is that we have people here in our unit working on some of the test items that will be discussed in future webinars and what I'm hearing with the math is that there were some pretty big changes in terms of how math is organized with these particular standards.
There are those domains. What about the other content areas. Colorado certainly has other content standards well beyond ELA and mathematics and I'm thinking that's true in your state. There are efforts specific to what's happening in science and world language and art so while we don't have common course state standards in those other areas and why that will be important personally go back to what I said. The ELA and math why that's important is that when Annette talks about what's happening with it [ Indiscernible ] you will hear about the assessment Consortium and their topics are focused on ELA and mathematics. So from assessment perspective that is where common core alliance with assessment. After that is up to individual states. In my state we have science assessment and we are newly developing social studies. So what is happening with social studies and science is not a result of the national standard per se because we don't have them in common core that people are drawing from resources that are happening across the country outside of the common core to look at the standards. I want to reassure you that even though common core State standards only are specific to ELA and mathematics this point in time there are good national level standards that of happen across the country that your state is involved with. Or if you're like Colorado you probably have set up stakeholders and those other content areas. All of our standards in Colorado have been teacher driven -- driven and that is what happens in most states.
What is the timeline state adoption. The standards were released in 2010 and it's a little bit confusing whether to date it is 45 or it's increased but if you go to the website and at the end of this PowerPoint you will see resources. Today 45 states and the District of Columbia, Department of Defense and two territories have adopted the common core State standards. When I was at a recent meeting of ASUS in Atlanta I talked to one state Alaska who was not included in this 45. She said they're coming on board. So one of the things we want you to do is to go back and do some homework if you don't know to check where your state is with the common core State standards. If you are [ Indiscernible ] it was [ Indiscernible ] that you did adopt a common core State standards are probably you do have them embedded into your standards your state department without to your school districts. Do some work. The one I believe I know is an on board is Texas. This question about Nebraska and Virginia. I'm not sure if -- also missing. But I think the essence of the slide that's important is that when you think about educational initiatives think about how you get all the country on board and for the most part, and core State standards because they are not nationally required through our federal government I think it's a pretty impressive thing to think about how many people are on board with implementation. Why are they important? We talked about that promote equity by ensuring students are matter where they live are well-prepared and the goal is to make sure it doesn't matter if you come from one state to the next but the instruction is going to be focusing on the same level content. There really aligned with college and work ready expectations. I think when the people came together to work on the standards they were pretty focused on making sure they were clear and they were understandable and consistent. They are pretty rigorous and I think that might be something that is up for discussion in different states. I know in our state we have had discussions about the level of rigor. They are very rigorous with their content. And specific to high orders thinking skills and 21st century skills. And their evidence-based so anything that went into the standards did come from a body of research.
They enable collaborations between the states. Picture all the states and the territories that have adopted the common core. They now have an opportunity to develop tools that can be shared and that was one of the advantages of coming together on an initiative like this. Think about state assessments. If they are predicated on separate state standards that means that Nebraska has a different state assessment and Colorado has the North Carolina than Washington Accenture. -- Etc. We have a lot of effort going into test development across the board because we don't have something that has parallel construction. The people who focused on getting the common core standards were focusing on a, and will language used across states in developing tools and policies and textbooks are another way and digital media. The idea is we're bringing everyone on board. I want to say that when we were at our last meeting in Atlanta they have a new director and as he talked about this and I sat in the audience I started to get really excited about it because I'm like some other initiatives the one thing this feels very powerful is it talks about [ Indiscernible ] for all students and it is an opportunity that were not making it up individually as we go along. And I think those of us in death wind projects can resonate because I know of no other really know whether disability focused group that shares as beautifully as our deaf blind project. If you go to our Colorado website you will say there's all those California back sheets and that they are from Nevada. We steal from each other and we credit each other because if somebody has developed something we want to share it and equalize it. I think that's the beauty of the common core is that people are looking at having a product that can go across states. This is a Colorado slide. As I mentioned we call it the Colorado academic standards. You can see that it rolls and a whole bunch of focuses. So we had standards specific to our English language learners. We have a common core standards absolutely aligned within the Colorado academic standards. That focus on the first century learning skills and postsecondary workforce readiness and grade level at center. The goal is in my state is that all kids are represented and all teachers are represented and the one thing I didn't mention is that think about the work that's happening across the country with the teacher effectiveness. We have teacher effectiveness in my state that's predicated on standards. What are we teaching students at grade level and how are teachers doing with instruction. Once again the standards not only are about what is instructed but ultimately they will be used to look at how teachers are doing in terms of being affected. They are the platform or foundation for many state and national initiatives.
Standards -- adopted by my state in particular are going to drive what textbooks we choose and what instruction materials we use and what resources. Again know the standards by themselves are not curriculum but curriculum will be developed by teacher experts in order to ensure that we are instructed to the standards. Now we will talk about what a lot of you want to talk about which are what about students with disabilities. At the very end of the document I believe I have a link and details. Something called the application to students with disabilities. If you go to the website that details the common core State standards you will see some specifics to students with disabilities. Some of the language is a little vague. It's not specific to deaf blindness. That's where we will have to do our work with projects but it does talk about students with disabilities. All those kids eligible under [ Indiscernible ] have the [ Indiscernible ] curriculum. That is one thing we worked hard in my state. To ensure people understand that our kids have the same curriculum as every student across the state that the general education curriculum is the curriculum for all students and we ensure we have differentiation so that if appropriate for our kids. This isn't anything new what I do in my state but what you do in your state. We all are looking at the common core or state standards to guide what's happening in the everyday classroom. Martha for low is someone you who did digs on Dougal. One of the things you talked about is the goals are consistent with the goals we've had for students with disabilities just the same as we've had for students without disabilities. We absolutely can infuse technology and accommodations as we roll out the other two webinars you will hear examples about how common core comes to life when it comes to instructions specific to students with disabilities and specifically with our kids who have deaf blindness. The guidance they've offered. If you read the literature is the talk about students with disability they talk about and acknowledge we need supports and related services. There in place for students. Wise is important is remember when the common core was developed it was developed across the country and that included general education personnel including administrators. What they are hearing is that our students are absolutely included in the standards and there are systems in place to assist her students of meeting -- getting access to the general education curriculum and doing well with it. So the detail IPs aligned with goals. We're having conversations in our state about standards based IP and how does that rollout and how we support teachers another standing the curriculum for students with deaf blindness. What needs to be in place so that students can have meaningful instruction.
A, dishes. These it may look a little lightweight. This is actually language from the guidance of the common core State standards material you will find on their website. They have used that example specific to braille and screen readers etc. We know as a students with deaf blind is that sometimes we are going deeper and using more technology and sometimes low-tech and sometimes high-tech. Well beyond to braille screen readers but again in the literature describing the common core standards to give these examples. It's a reassurance their understanding that students with century disabilities are included in the standards. We mentioned for all there is a huge acknowledgment and push and I say push in a nice way. That we need to be looking at universal design for learning or UDI. This is a philosophy that goes into how do we engage our students by making sure we're presenting information in multiple ways that is really ensuring access to the content to our students. So for students with disabilities we're asking they participate with success in the curriculum with the additional supports we would commonly put in an IP. What is different from this is probably most states are ready doing this as you build your IP and looking at accommodations and modifications needs and assistive technology. What might be different is how tied to the standards IP czar. The literature also talks about what we want to avoid which are low expectations. I will tell you I hear that in my state and what I feel comfortable about is that in the old days people talk about high expectations. It's like they said it like you were talking about the weather. You didn't know if he pushed on and how deep that low expectation to high expectations would mean. When I think I'm hearing and I've heard it from a fellow who is working with see CFO is a commitment that we do have high expectations. These are standards and they do include all kids.
This is a slide that Karen Erickson had. One of the things we're hearing from [ Indiscernible ] from instructional leaders like Dr. Karen Erickson when it comes to literacy is that we need to move forward in special education from a focus that sometimes seem to be exclusively accessed to a focus on learning. When I first heard this I thought wait a minute. We have always been about both of these things but I think for me as a deaf blind project was and what it brings up is I'm always going to protect access and many of our training that we offer and Colorado have to do with something that is going to ensure access. I think what we've done is we have also started to focus on learning with the other standing that we are taking teachers understanding learning with the curriculum. This is not so much a deaf blind example but a blindness example. A few years back in Colorado as I started to learn more about the national expert reading panel and the big five we protect in conventional literacy I queried myself to say what the teachers of the blind really understand by reading instruction. Certainly they understand braille and many things but do they have the same vernacular of a teacher who is doing progress monitoring in the classroom around [ Indiscernible ]. We devise a course that was a three semester course and K Holbrook came down and taught it. That focus was what is good reading instruction. We didn't talk about kids who were blind or kids who are deaf blind. We just talked about what is good reading instruction. This is frustrating initially to my teachers because they wanted to talk about braille and digitized text and to understand what the race's gas reserves that about fluency about children who are blind. We held them at bay for the first part of the course of the goal was they would do a real deep dive into good research-based reading instruction and then we started to do the application a blindness and deaf blindness. I goal was to ensure that the teachers had operationalized vocabulary so they could talk to the reading specialist in their school district and talk about the problems that the students were having and engage in a problem-solving mentality. As a result people starting to feel more comfortable to say when is it an issue around blindness and what is an issue about reading challenge. I think that is what this slide is guiding us to is to make sure that deaf blind projects we're understanding the common core and understanding the curriculum so we're not just seen as the axis people. We're seen as the people that can do something about the students learning because we are gathering a good collaborative team at the table. Not only are we looking at national level collaboration by trying to model great state collaboration and district teeming collaboration so that people just don't pass off deaf blindness to say less of the people train deaf blindness work for students. No, we need content people and the century disabilities specialist. So we can put it together to make sure the kid is having access to learning.
Students who are deaf blind. We know our students benefit and require lots of accommodations and in many cases because we have kids who are candidates for the alternate assessment they require people looking at alternate achievement standards. We also know these are students who benefit from a multitiered system of support. I don't know about your states that we're moving away from the term response to intervention into an TFF. Multitiered system of support. The goal is that every child gets good universal instruction. The metaphor coming out on a national level right now is if you think about universal instruction as the sheet everybody in the classroom gets the sheet and the cover sheet as a cotton sheet of good universal instruction. Some of our kids need more support so we put another blanket on the but that might be tier 2 and this may need more support and we may put that down [ Indiscernible ] especially with whether in Colorado. That would be tier 3. The idea is we start with that really good universal instruction and that's the common core. Those are the standards that we expect students to learn in their graves. The common core requires us to emphasize learning over time as you get more familiar with the standards as they were allowed in your state or whatever they're called. With their called academic standards like in my state. You will see how learning builds over time. Para that there is an application and knowledge and skills. Hopefully we are looking at our students being very active participants and they are being seen as general education students first. And then also the students who need especially instruction and kids eligible for special education. That collaboration I can't stress it enough and this is why I would appeal to you to do work because what we are finding just like the teachers of visually impaired with in Colorado when they can go back to their districts and they [ Indiscernible ] and they can talk about it and also talk about the research that [ Indiscernible ] fluency awareness etc. they have a more welcome the seat at the table and I think the tendency for people to say wait a minute you are the expert you should be that full content provider. Those things start to wane because people are understanding that we need a collaborative team. The five a key elements of school support would be first ownership and you all know that when we talk about ownership we're talking about everybody is looking at owning that child. We've changed our language in Colorado. We've been big on the world [ Indiscernible ] and talk about all students but our NCSS people are talking about every student. For whatever reason the distinction between all and every seems to be a big one because when we talk about these a standards for every student it seems to resonate a little deeper that we are including yes our kids who take alternate assessment and yes our kids who have multiple disabilities and absolutely our kids with deaf blindness. So that ownership part is very big and I will tell you that I feel that I am hearing this from the top of a national organization when we talk about the common core State standards. They are not excluding students with disabilities with that said. I think it's going to be up to the deaf blind project whether we work individually or collaboratively or even nationally to ensure that when we say every child that we are actively giving examples of how our students are involved with the common core standards. I think you'll see that in the webinars to come. High expectations we talked about. Intervention systems. This is where deaf blind project staff we can be modeling to our colleagues in school districts about how you do that work together so you have proactive intervention that leads into inclusion and collaborative thinking. We spent time with our RTI folks talking about those problem-solving teams that you have content experts in the same room as you have disability experts so you can put it together and think about how does this work and how does this kid into access and learn from the standards. Organizational and professional development. What I will tell you is that we are on a mission in my state to bring everybody on board with the common core Colorado academic standards. We've taken a stance for this next year that all projects in our special education unit here at the Department of education will have a strong literacy focus. One of my goals will be that my team is well trained in the common core and my team is well-trained in research-based reading practices. We will bring that forward to the deaf blind to grant. We have done some good work the past couple summer institutes have focused specifically on literacy. The good news is that is tied to the standards of the teachers who walk away from the summer institutes don't see this as a separate curriculum for students who are deaf blind. Pace this is the curriculum and what we need to do to make sure our kids can truly participate.
What can you do? Learn about the common core standards. If you are one of the 543 that have not adopted the common core I would encourage you to get online. I went on my last night and did some googling and Washington came up in Oregon came up. Sorry, I'm getting the Western region states. But the truth is my guess is that if you Google common core State standards and type in the name of your state. I believe you will find information and I believe you could go to common core website and I put that resource in. You can find out where your state is. In my state you can go to the CDE website and download the standards. It's a lot of download but you can do that so you can get intimately familiar with the grade level standards. Participate in professional development. One of the things that's happening in Colorado is exciting. I told you that the common core State standards don't result in a package curriculum. That is something that's happening on a state or local level. One thing that is happening in Colorado is that over the past year they brought together groups and groups of teachers and if you want the web link I can share it. They have come up with 600 examples of particular examples of how the common core can manifest into curricular instruction. Teacher products. This is where the project really can help. We just had a meeting with the standards people and one of our questions was when we look at these curricular frameworks that have been developed how are they working for kids with disabilities and Gina and I are thinking about the students we represent. And certainly kids with deaf blindness. They said we wanted to come in and take what we've done and getting -- give examples. There's an opportunity for us to be involved and not just to take a product off the shelf and say gosh. I have to do with my population over here but we can't get and give it back and it will be on our website so people can see examples of how this works if I'm a student who is deaf blind.
Participate in your professional trainings. We hope to go to three regional trainings that are going to be provided in Colorado. We hope that part of what we do as we communicate on the [ Indiscernible ] with the teachers is encourage them. My goal is that no matter Regina and I go on a project in our family specialist in our contract consultants is that if people ask us about the common core we can either show them where to go or we can speak with great knowledge so people understand that as leaders interstate deaf blind projects we know this stuff and a brace it and our kids are included. I would encourage you to do that. You can see there is a website here to implement evidence-based practices. And provide your students continual access. I think it would be great if California -- Marie if you are listening develop fact sheets on this in Colorado will maybe do that. The more we do that shows that we understand this and that her students are included in we have examples of how they are included well I think we're going to be setting leadership role for the country. Monitor student progress. Here is a few resources. This a national [ Indiscernible ] resource that has parent guides to student success and they have 11 guy that reflect the common core State standards. You may want to look at those and see if there's something you could share with your family if you need to do to fix specific to deaf blindness. CEC has guidance. The big national teacher organizations whether special education or [ Indiscernible ] have been involved. Check out CEC. Here is that web link I talked about with the Brad overview. If you go to the www. to the www.corestandards.org you will see a lot of the can't tend that was in this PowerPoint. They have pages and QA documents. You will find that link to the application to students with disabilities and what's happening in your state. You can see this is just the place to go on that core standards page. It's talking about in the states and that will tell you more information about what's happening in your state. I will end with a picture. This is a picture of two of our students in the Colorado project. But the students who are deaf blind. It's a fun story because these are kids -- we have pages of them from very young ages as they came to family trainings. G.I. has been involved with both of these students and these two students went to homecoming or prom. And Gina has great slides of them at homecoming. Both of the students are -- one is interstate school for the deaf and blind and one is in a public school. Both kids are very actively involved with their curriculum making progress. The grant has supported them in their work towards high expectations and doing very well in [ Indiscernible ]. I want to and. If you learn anything today what I hope you learn is that I do believe that the people who work together to put the standards together really truly did it for all students and do I think everything is mapped out for deaf blindness? No. To I think we have a great opportunity I had of this? The truly funded in the next around? I will tell you Colorado will absolutely step up. This will be part of our work from a technical systems perspective and maybe a product development perspective. Because I can think of no other initiative that has come my way in a very long time where I truly feel that people when they talk about -- they're talking about all. When we did the next two webinars please note that the funds coming in terms of understanding some of the consortia work I really think you will be deeply excited about what's happening with the consortium work specific to kids with sensory disabilities. Those of you who may be thinking wait a minute and what about my kids. My kids are alternate assessment Vanessa kids who may not be taking that state assessment I think you'll learn about mind blowing things that are happening in the country where people sitting around tables are talking about the common core and how it relates to kids like our kids. That will be great. Sue is going to put some good together that well be very helpful because that is where the rubber hits the road in terms of instruction. My job today was to hopefully give you an overview of this thing we call the common core State standards to invite you to do some homework in your state to learn where you're at. I think this is a great opportunity for us to think together and talk together. It may be a topic in the future would be all come together. I personally would like to know what people are doing in your state. With that let me find out where your questions might be.
Randy, remind you -- if you have a question hit star 62 un-mute.
If Kathy McNulty. You mentioned a few times throughout the presentation that this was not federally led or funded. But could you talk a little bit about OCP presence and whatever involvement they may have or how they are staying in step and in tune with this big initiative.
What I will say and then I will ask if anybody is smarter than me on this question Japan and you won't hurt my feelings. My understanding is that when this was originally developed they were not involved. What I do think that has happened is a for example [ Indiscernible ] required that states adopt the common core. I do believe there has been an acknowledgment and an appreciation of something called common core State standards because of the very things I talked about earlier that we are looking at an opportunity to say this is what we want as a country across the country for our students. I think that's part of it. If you look at the assessment consortia which will be a discussion in the next webinar what you will see is all for this assessment for sure shot there to specific and to specific to [ Indiscernible ] are predicated on the common core State standards specific to ELA and mathematics. I think that shows great inherent support from OSEP that these are recognized standards because they haven't developed -- should have been developed by teachers and supported by the researchers etc. I think the assessment grants and put that in is confirmation of their support.
Anything else either from Claire born at or anybody else?
Did that answer your question, Kathy?
I was going to add along with what [ Indiscernible ] said states that are now applying for the waiver applications for the no Child left behind waiver is -- that is a component of that that they have to show that the common core for many of the states is being adopted.
Yes. We are seeing -- we are absolutely seeing that people are putting up to these. And probably what I don't know is if beyond the assessment grants and the waivers if there is any other tree examples. My experience when I'm gathering national forms what I'm hearing is people are talking about the standards in a very positive supportive manner.
Any other questions?
This is Jay. Yes, we would like to see the pictures. I like the cat next to the wonderful kid. I really appreciate your advice and emphasis and highlighting the importance to be involved. One of the things that strikes me as I'm listening to you and paying attention to the questions is from a personal perspective. I spent so many years working at the FDA and now and now -- I'm not there and how quickly one can get out of touch on what's happening at that level. I appreciate you and Annette and the others are paying attention and bringing it to the attention of the deaf blind network. My sense is that a lot of people who aren't as intimately involved have a misunderstanding that the common core standards is something for whom application applies to others and doesn't necessarily apply to a lot of our kids. So I appreciate you are saying that's not true and you do need to pay attention here and there are national efforts to talk about all meeting all.
And get it doesn't mean we can then assume is happening. I think that is appealed we have to be involved.
I agree because I think there's two ways to look at it. One is again what's happening on a national level and we do know that a national level special education students with disabilities have been included in the discussions etc. But I also think that ground-up is critical and I go back to that examples of reading course in Colorado. I can think of very few other examples where we have taken something on that was -- that rigorously that had such positive results because there is a competence there. When you have a practitioner who really understands the operation -- if somebody even shows up and talks about the common core. Understand state standards and grade level expectations. It immediately starts to build bridges that we have the professionals who are gathered working on behalf of every student. What I will say in my state is that we are seeing a movement called special education reinvented. Cindy I just heard that the state director in Arizona is going to have something maybe not with that same title but that's in essence. What we're saying is happening in different states and maybe across the country. People are starting to say what is happening specific and general education that's good for kids who have disabilities. The old days of saying you're a kid on IP of line to special ed are going away because we have two pretty big -- three pretty big national initiatives right now. We have a common core State standards which align. This is what gives need to know. We have MTF that multi tiered systems of support which talk about every single child having very good universal instruction and then you customize as you need to based on good progress monitoring on how kids are doing and problem-solving teams that include content experts as well as disability specific experts. The third initiative getting bigger and bigger will -- is predicated on teachers being measured about what's happening with instruction as we gather evidence on state assessments which are based on -- it's all starts to come back to the standards. I do know if you're feeling skeptical about how does this relate to a kid but that blind is I think is both of it is that we have people who are acknowledging our kids but we will have to do that backfill. We will have to do the work to say this is how it works for a student with who is deaf blind. Or four student is deaf blind and maybe takes a assessment and [ Indiscernible ] life is accessible and the kid does well or it maybe the student who has more complicated needs and we know there is probably not anymore the complicated kid than a kid with deaf blind in terms of their needs. How does that happen for this kids and what I will say is that when you know the vernacular and you have some premise of this people more apt to include us and they will want you to be how this gets actualized in the field.
Any other questions?
I see typing.
His name is Anthony David [ Indiscernible ]. The call and Tony. I will call him Anthony. He's precious. Anything else you have questions about -- I hope that this has been helpful. I will tell you I don't see myself as an expert on the common core. I see myself as a learner. I was on the computer last night googling things. There are people on this conference call that are smarter than me on this. I am just a person who got to kick you off on it. I hope you feel excited about it and I really hope that we continue this dialogue. As you come to the next two webinars be thinking about how this works and if any of you want to collaborate let's do it. Let's do it ensure the people that it's really about our kids and we're doing well with it.
Thank you Tammy. This is Jay. I appreciate those words. It's going to be important to be involved. I see this as a opportunity not only for the national place but because of limitation does vary by state. There is a need for a state level voice and we need to balance that and I think we can use each other to accomplish that. Once again let's use the deaf blind network to help facilitate this conversation. I would recommend we start by committing to attending the next two webinars as a reminder. The second webinar is scheduled for Wednesday Wednesday, 20 March. At the same time, 11 AM Pacific, 12 mountain, one a clock p.m. central. How states align with the consortia. Our presenters for that include Annette Carey from West Virginia and Claire Greer from North Carolina. The final webinar is scheduled for Wednesday is scheduled for Wednesday, April 24. The same time periods. That will be Sue Del from Rhode Island and Nancy steal from NCDB. And that will be focusing on on implications and perspectives of teaching to the common core standards. At that point I think we should think about how do we use technology to keep these conversations going and where together. Keep that in the back of our minds as we head into the next two webinars. With that I think we've answered questions. Tammy thank you again.
You are welcome.
It takes a lot to prepare and sometimes harder to present to your colleagues than to others. We appreciate your time. You brought a perspective and knowledge base that many of us didn't have.
With that I want to end by thanking Randy form making all of this happen no kidding. Thanks for your facilitation. This will be available for download archive for those who weren't able to join or if you want to share this content with any of your colleagues know we will have it up and available via the archive. We will send an e-mail to the deaf blind project directors and coordinators with that URL so you can access it in the future.
With that pace again. We will see you all on 20 March, Wednesday, same time period. IQ everyone.
[ Event Concluded ]