In a study of 15 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, researchers at SREB identified the degree to which the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction provided leadership and support for the statewide use of high-quality instructional materials that aligned to the state’s K-12 college- and career-readiness standards in English language arts (ELA) and math.

SREB developed a list of actions that demonstrate state leadership and support in each of the three areas listed below. These actions, or “look-fors,” guided data collection and the analysis of state efforts. Read about the look-fors in the full report, located to the right. State efforts in each area fell into one of three levels of implementation: minimal, essential or strong. In some cases, SREB researchers also designated a state action as notable. Below is a detailed description of this state’s efforts.

Table of Contents

Highlights	Area 1	Area 2	Area 3	Moving Forward

Highlights from North Carolina

• Strong efforts to establish clear and consistent conventions to assess the quality and alignment of instructional materials to state college- and career-readiness standards. The Department of Public Instruction established consistent criteria based on nationally recognized tools to assess the quality and alignment of textbooks and online instructional materials in the department’s Home Base resource repository. The department established a clear process for reviewing textbooks that involved educators. It also created a process to develop, review, select and update items for Home Base at least semi-annually, enabling the department to continually enhance the timeliness and relevance of its offerings. These efforts helped build local capacity to implement the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, which included the Common Core State Standards and were implemented in 2014-15 and 2015-16. These efforts also build local capacity to implement the North Carolina Academic Standards, which educators began implementing in 2016-17.
• Strong support for local efforts to align instructional materials. The department provided extensive on-demand tools to assist educators with aligning instructional materials. The department offered multiple types of professional learning and technical assistance that reached many educators and districts across the state, including Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) trainings and coaches; the Governor’s Teacher Network; and a collaboration with Regional Education Service Alliances and teams from all 115 districts in 2014-15.
• Strong use of data to guide continuous improvement. The department regularly gathered multiple types of data. Data included trends in educator use and perceptions of the quality of the state’s guidance, instructional materials, professional learning and technical assistance. These data were gathered through Home Base user tallies, feedback from Home Base user groups and a fall 2015 statewide teacher survey. To use the data gathered to inform state efforts, a leadership council, senior advisory council, and service support teams involving leaders and staff members from across the department met regularly. Additionally, the department’s Home Base team and field consultants met regularly with educator groups, a consortium of district and charter school leaders, and other stakeholders.

Area 1: Establishing Clear Conventions

Did the department establish clear criteria and a clear process for identifying high-quality instructional materials aligned to the state’s college- and career-readiness standards?

North Carolina provided strong leadership and support in this area.

The department established consistent criteria based on nationally recognized tools to assess the quality of textbooks and online, on-demand instructional materials and their alignment to the state’s college- and career-readiness standards—the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. The department established a clear process that involved educators to review textbooks. It also created a process that involved educators and partners for developing, reviewing, selecting and updating online, on-demand instructional materials, at least semi-annually.

Table 1: State Criteria and Processes for Reviewing Textbooks and Online, On-Demand Instructional Materials

State authority and role in developing and selecting instructional materials	Criteria the state used to develop and select materials	Process the state used to develop and select materials
Textbooks
In accordance with state law: The state board of education was required to adopt recommended textbooks. Local boards of education were not required to select items from the board-adopted list.	The department provided the North Carolina Textbook Commission with review criteria for math, which the department developed based on Student Achievement Partners’ Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool (IMET). The IMET is nationally recognized as a clear and accurate tool to assess the quality and alignment of textbooks to college- and career-readiness standards. The department provided review criteria for ELA, which it developed in 2011 and submitted to external experts for review to ensure alignment to the state’s standards.	The North Carolina Textbook Commission, made up of educators and parents recommended by the state superintendent and appointed by the governor, was responsible for reviewing and recommending items for adoption by the board. The commission could appoint regional advisors and content area experts, whom the department was responsible for training and supporting. Items were adopted every five years. ELA items were most recently adopted in 2011 followed by math items in 2014.
Online, On-Demand Instructional Materials
The department provided the Home Base repository, which included a collection of model lesson and unit plans and formative assessment items. Educators could use these items to inform their planning.	The department based its North Carolina Summary Rubric on Achieve’s Open Educational Resource (OER) and Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) rubrics. (Rubrics are documents that outline expectations, guidelines and procedures.) The OER and EQuIP rubrics are widely accepted as clear and accurate tools to assess the quality and alignment of instructional materials to college- and career-readiness standards.	Department content analysts and partners from North Carolina State University reviewed items developed by vendors and North Carolina educators. Items were developed, reviewed and updated on an as-needed basis, at least semi-annually.

Area 2: Supporting Local Efforts

Did the department provide guidance, instructional materials, professional learning and technical assistance to build local knowledge and skills, and support educator use of aligned materials?

North Carolina provided strong leadership and support in this area.

The department provided extensive guidance and instructional materials for on-demand access by educators. Notably, North Carolina educators reported in a fall 2015 statewide survey that they found the department’s online repositories and websites to be user-friendly and engaging. The department offered multiple types of professional learning and technical assistance that reached many educators and districts across the state. These services included training on how to apply the nationally recognized criteria the department used to review instructional materials (described above). Examples of the department’s efforts include the following.

Guidance

Guidance could include information about the standards and aligned teaching strategies, rubrics for gauging alignment of instructional materials, templates for designing aligned instruction, lists of adopted textbooks and online professional learning resources. North Carolina provided the following guidance documents.

• List of board-adopted textbooks
• ELA and Read to Achieve LiveBinder folders of digital resources, including a Read to Achieve implementation guide, planning tools and online professional learning resources for aligning curricula and assessments at the district, school and classroom levels
• An instructional toolkit to help educators understand the standards, crosswalks with the previous state standards, text exemplars, graphic organizers and assessment prototypes
• Wiki spaces dedicated to ELA and math for grades K-12, the state’s Multi-Tiered System of Support and English language development, including extensive guidance for understanding the standards and lesson planning templates and tools
• iTunes U library of numerous professional learning videos on designing and selecting aligned instructional materials

Instructional Materials

Instructional materials could include a variety of tools and resources that educators use to plan and deliver instruction, such as model lesson and unit plans, sample formative assessments, textbooks, student workbooks and manipulatives, recommended texts and videos, and multimedia learning tools. North Carolina provided the following types of instructional materials.

• Home Base extensive collection of more than 16,000 instructional resources, including model lesson and unit plans, formative assessment items, and approximately 600 SAS (formerly Statistical Analysis System) Curriculum Pathways materials

Professional Learning and Technical Assistance

• Professional learning and ongoing technical assistance on aligning instructional materials to teams of teachers and leaders from all 115 districts in the state, provided in 2014-15 by the department’s 21 regional professional development leads (RPDLs), and the state’s Regional Education Service Alliances. See SREB’s May 2016 North Carolina professional learning profile for a full description of the effort.
• Intensive support for curriculum alignment for low-performing schools, and as-needed consulting and coaching for all other schools, provided in 2015-16 as the number of RPDLs decreased from 21 to four due to decreased funding for department staff positions
• Training on developing aligned lesson plans, unit plans and formative assessment items for approximately 450 selected teachers in the Governor’s Teacher Network. Items developed based on this training were included in Home Base in 2014-15.
• Training on LDC and MDC practices and tools for teachers and leaders, and on-site implementation coaching provided in partnership with SREB at 121 schools, representing 41 of the state’s 115 districts in 2015
• Professional learning opportunities for educators on using Home Base and other digital curricular tools, provided in summer 2015
• Technical assistance for districts on using Home Base, provided in 2015-16 by regional consultants
• Training for teachers on differentiated instruction and the principles of Universal Design for Learning, as part of the department’s annual conferences on exceptional children. Open to all educators, 1,894 teachers attended the conference in 2015 and 3,177 attended in 2016.

“In the LDC and MDC professional learning, the level of engagement and the level of discourse around the standards that participants get on planning instructional units and assisting students in meeting the demands of the standards has really push us in the right direction.”—North Carolina district leader

Area 3: Using Data to Continuously Improve State Efforts

Did the department regularly gather and use multiple types of data in order to continuously improve its leadership and support for the statewide alignment of instructional materials to college- and career-readiness standards?

North Carolina provided strong leadership and support in this area.

The department frequently gathered four of the five types of data that SREB deemed key for state leadership, including information on local curriculum alignment practices. Leaders and staff from across the agency, as well as educators and partners, participated in analysis and discussion of the data to inform state efforts. 

Table 2: Data the Department Gathered to Inform its Efforts

Key types of data	Data sources
Educator use of state guidance and instructional materials, and educator participation in the professional learning and technical assistance the department offered	Number of Home Base users Feedback gathered during monthly and bi-monthly meetings with various Home Base user groups
Educator perceptions of the quality of the state’s offerings	Fall 2015 statewide teacher survey Home Base user ratings and recommendations Feedback gathered during monthly and bi-monthly meetings with various Home Base user groups Biennial statewide teacher working conditions survey, last administered in 2014
Educator emerging needs	Fall 2015 statewide teacher survey Home Base user ratings and recommendations Feedback gathered during monthly and bi-monthly meetings with various Home Base user groups
Impact of state offerings on measurable teacher or student outcomes	None reported
Local curriculum alignment practices	Information gleaned through the support provided to district teams in 2014-15, described above in the support section

The department used this data to improve one of its supports for local instructional materials alignment:

• Online, on-demand guidance and instructional materials

The department established the following routines to analyze data, discuss findings and determine actions to address identified needs:

• The leadership council (the state superintendent and department leaders), senior advisory council (school improvement directors) and service support teams (program coordinators, coaches and other experts) formed interlocking teams and met regularly.
• Staff in the department’s division of teaching and learning met monthly to monitor Home Base data.
• The department’s Home Base team and field consultants met regularly with various Home Base user groups and educators. They met monthly with the instructional users group of teachers, principals and instructional technology directors; monthly with the resource consortium of district and charter school leaders; and bi-monthly with the external stakeholder advisory group of district and charter school leaders, education association representatives and other stakeholders.

Moving Forward

As North Carolina strives to continuously improve, state leaders may wish to consider the following recommendations.    

• Continue and enhance the state’s strong support for local practice through professional learning and technical assistance. For example, explore ways to rekindle aspects of the comprehensive and coordinated technical assistance and professional learning for leadership teams from all districts, which the department provided in partnership with the Regional Education Service Alliances through 2014-15. This will ensure that educators in all districts continue to have needed support to help them learn about, design and deliver instruction on the North Carolina Academic Standards, which educators began implementing in 2016-17. See the Alabama, Kentucky and Louisiana profiles for descriptions of other professional learning and technical assistance initiatives that were intensive, integrated and sustained and that involved large numbers of districts, schools or educators.
• Continue and enhance the state’s strong use of data to drive improvement. For example, examine how educator use of state materials and services impacts educator practice and student learning. See other strong state efforts to use data for continuous improvement noted in the Arkansas, Delaware, Tennessee and West Virginia profiles.