Your State's Promising Practice
The NCRVE Publication, Taking Off! Sharing State-level Accountability Strategies, has been created through contributions from state level staff in a variety of ways. Promising practices included in this publication were identified through a review of relevant research and literature, interviews with state staff and national organizations involved in state-level initiatives, and through the technical assistance conducted by NCRVE during 1998. States were given the opportunity to identify their own promising practices through a fax-back form to state directors. This year, states are again invited to submit promising practices that can be included in a follow-up and update to this document. Taking Off! will evolve and is intended to serve as a workbook for states as they develop their state plans to implement Perkins III accountability measures. More generally, this workbook is intended to help states envision how vocational education can continue to raise student achievement and tie its efforts to fit more closely into state education reform and workforce development efforts.
As part of NCRVE's ongoing technical assistance, we are asking states to identify practices or "snippets" that can be shared with other states. While promising practices are approximately two to three pages in length and are usually descriptions of policies in the implementation stage, snippets are intended to be short descriptions of emerging policies or plans that have yet to be fully implemented.
There are at least three ways that promising practices or "snippet" can be submitted. One way is to submit a promising practice or "snippet" on the forms that have been included in this document. Another way to include a promising practice is to complete the fax-back form. NCRVE staff will follow up with a telephone interview and a draft of the promising practice for you to review. The third way is electronically at the NCRVE Web site (http://ncrve.berkeley.edu/sts).
Here are some guidelines for writing a promising practice or snippet. As you write about the promising practice, think about how your state fits on the continuums that have been discussed in this document. Does your state lean toward centralization? Decentralization? Is workforce training the primary purpose of vocational education? Is education reform the primary purpose? A mixture of both? How do these tensions affect implementation?
Policy Rationale and Goals: First, describe the policy and the background or history in your state. What are the goals of the policy? Where did the political support for the policy come from? What about the policy is specific to the state? What can be generalized to other state efforts? How does the continuum come into play here or in the implementation strategies?
Implementation Strategy: What strategies were used to implement the policy? How were the goals communicated to the local level? What kinds of policy levers were used to implement the policy (i.e., mandate or rule changes, technical assistance, tying policy to program funding). What kinds of support are given to the local level to encourage implementation? What constraints does your state have in implementing the strategy?
Evolution of Strategy: How has strategy evolved or been modified? Why did the state have to modify it? If the implementation strategy has not been modified much, this section is optional.
Outcomes/Lessons Learned: In what ways does your state feel that this policy/strategy has improved student achievement? Is there data to support it? Can the state point to other measures of success that support the continued implementation of the policy (i.e. evidence of expanded use, more requests for certain products or assistance from the state, continued political support for the policy, and so on) Are any formal evaluations planned? What has been learned that can be shared with other states?
