Recently in Fordham’s Flypaper, Robert Pondiscio reviewed the new “Professional Learning Partner Guide” published by Rivet Education. Excerpts of the piece appear below:
A new initiative is taking up the challenge of reviewing and rating professional learning in a more rigorous way, centered on the adoption and use of “high-quality instructional materials” (HQIM), and with the ambition of becoming something like the EdReports.org of professional learning. Louisiana-based Rivet Education has quietly published a “Professional Learning Partner Guide” aimed at increasing states’ use of high-quality instructional materials and aligned professional development for teachers.
The two dozen or so recommended providers successfully met various “gateways” to merit inclusion. Applicants submit learning materials like training presentations, handouts, guidebooks, course syllabi, and coaching notes. Rivet’s reviewers evaluate the materials to determine if the organizations offer “significant evidence of robust, HQIM-aligned professional learning services.” Those that meet the criteria are profiled in Rivet’s “Professional Learning Partner Guide.”
Arguably, the greatest leverage offered by Rivet’s Practice Guide is to raise districts’ own view of what professional learning should look like, and to raise sophistication about high-quality implementation of curriculum. This has been a bit of a blind spot for too long even among curriculum advocates, who can be guilty of promoting the idea (or allowing it to go unchallenged) that merely adopting HQIM is enough.
For more, see: https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/high-quality-curriculum-doesnt-teach-itself
