Race to the Top
Progress Update - C3
Part B:
Application sub-criterion: (C)(3): Using data to improve instruction
STATE’s goals for this sub-criterion:
 Develop and implement a statewide Instructional Improvement System (IIS).
 Provide professional development and communications to prepare the teachers, students,
parents and administrators for implementing the IIS.
Relevant projects: Home Base implementation
1. Is the State on-track to implement the activities and meet the goals and performance
measures that are included in its approved scope of work for this sub-criterion? If
so, explain why. If not, explain why not.
a) General Progress
North Carolina has made significant progress toward developing and implementing an
integrated statewide Instructional Improvement System (IIS) and student information
system. (North Carolina is integrating the new student system with the core instructional
improvement system and the educator evaluation and professional development system
and has named the overall portfolio of integrated applications “Home Base”).
In addition to using RttT funds toward the development of the IIS and the acquisition of
instructional and assessment content, North Carolina is also using state resources to
convert to a new and better student information system (Pearson’s PowerSchool). Home
Base will help North Carolina Educators use data (e.g. enrollment, demographic,
discipline, attendance, courses, transcripts, benchmark and summative assessment results)
to inform instruction (e.g. lesson and unit plans, assignment of instructional materials,
creation of new classroom and benchmark assessments). Figure 1 (page six below)
shows the suite of products that are being integrated into Home Base. Vendors have
established timelines and milestones for delivery of key components of the system by the
summer of 2013 with additional functionality added throughout the year. While the
contracts were signed later than anticipated, North Carolina has worked with the vendors
to develop plans to implement the full suite of feature-rich tools by the end of the grant
period to go along with the high-quality resources that the State has been gathering and
vetting for over a year.
Initial discovery meetings have been completed, and configuration and design work is
underway. NCDPI is working closely with Pearson and the Public Consulting Group
(PCG) and Truenorthlogic vendor partnership on the build and integration of the systems.
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b) Functionality1
Home Base functionality will roll out in stages throughout 2013-14 and 2014-15. The
phased implementation accomplishes two things. First, it will allow educators to focus on
understanding and using a smaller set of functionalities and build upon the knowledge
gained over time. Second, it will mitigate some of the risks of rolling out a big, multipart system by allowing the vendors and NCDPI staff to concentrate on deploying
smaller subsets of the tools over a longer period of time to ensure that the team has the
time to make the necessary refinements and adjustments that are inevitably required with
such a large project. That said, North Carolina expects Home Base to be immediately
useful for educators.
In addition, NCDPI will select a group of partner LEAs to which the State will provide
additional support to for early adoption of a particular functionality. This will create
opportunities for districts to learn how the tools can help maximize the value of
instruction and for the State to learn strategies for support LEA/charter implementation
statewide. A call for volunteer LEAs has gone out to LEAs
(http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/homebase/updates/memos/input-requested.pdf)
and selections of partner sites will be made by the beginning of July.
c) Ensuring High-Quality, Useful Content in Home Base
North Carolina is building an extensive, expandable, high-quality repository of resources
to populate Home Base. Resources will come from a number of places:
Purchased Content
1
Existing Content

Northwest Evaluation Association
(NWEA) Science and Social
Studies Assessment Items [9,600
items]

ELA, Math, and Science
ClassScape assessments for use
in classroom and benchmark
assessments [22,000 items]

A Science and Social Studies
Digital Library consisting of
instructional/learning resources
[~10,000 resources]


Next Generation Common Core
Assessment Items [in development]
NCDPI staff-created resources
(including those from North
Carolina Virtual Public Schools,
and STEM that are funded by
RttT)

NCDPI is exploring additional
contracts with other vendors
See Home Base Functionality document for details on the functionality of the tool.
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Resource Consortium Content

Open Education Resources
DPI has established the Home Base
Resource Consortium to share the
best of NC educators’ resources
and will continue to build on this
over the years to develop a
collection of locally-created
resources to share statewide.

Resources taken particularly
from the growing number of
shared resources available due to
Common Core State Standards
(CCSS) in English and Math
[6,600+ tagged at current]
North Carolina is engaging internal staff, teachers and staff at the Center for Urban
Affairs at NC State to identify, review, and align the content to the CCSS and the North
Carolina Essential Standards (NCES) using Achieve and Open Education Resources
(OER) rubrics. Additional support is being offered by SEDL, the Southeast
Comprehensive Center funded by the USED.
d) Stakeholder Guidance and Engagement
The involvement and input of stakeholders, particularly educators, continues to drive and
inform the work of the Department. The Home Base Stakeholder Advisory Committee
made up of various LEA, charter and school staff, and representatives from educational
organizations meets every six to eight weeks. The feedback from this committee has been
instrumental in helping NCDPI focus on the important components of roll-out (e.g.
compatibility of Home Base with extant devices in schools and the importance of helping
schools make wise purchasing decisions in light of the state’s provisioning of Home
Base).
The Home Base User Group guides and influences the work in developing Home Base,
meeting on a monthly basis to inform the development work. LEA representatives from
this group were involved in the discovery, design and configuration meetings. With this
LEA input and involvement, the initial tool has been influenced by the needs of
practicing educators and continuously refined based on user input.
NCDPI has also visited LEAs to discuss and demonstrate portions of the system. LEA
Teams consist of curriculum & instruction, assessment, and technology staff. These
visits have provided valuable information that will be used to inform statewide
implementation, training, and communication strategies.
NCDPI also solicits feedback from teachers and other educators that participate in
monthly Home Base teacher webinars as well as those who attend conferences, such as
the Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement (CCSA).
e) Communications
NCDPI conducts strategic communications with educators about Home Base including:
what the tools will do, training, technology considerations, implementation and other
information. NCDPI has established a bi-weekly Home Base newsletter to raise
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awareness and keep LEAs and charters informed. Additionally, staff and vendors are
offering regular monthly webinars to demonstrate the functionality of the tool to various
groups of educators and are leading face-to-face meetings to build excitement and
investment in using the Home Base tools.
Every teacher across the state was sent a postcard providing information about Home
Base along with the Home Base website address. NCDPI has continually worked on
keeping the Home Base website up-to-date so that it can be a hub for current information
about the project. The website provides technical requirements information, a calendar of
Home Base webinars and presentations with links to registration, answers to frequently
asked questions (FAQs), archives of all biweekly updates, timelines, status updates, and
resources such as presentation slides and videos, to name just a few of the many, valuable
resources and types of information available to site visitors.
The Communications team has been integral in planning for and has attended the regional
Home base implementation planning workshops. More information about these
workshops is available below under section 2(a), “Quality of Implementation”.
The roll out of Home Base into the classroom will require a significant user support
effort, particularly in the first year of roll-out. NCDPI is using state resources to establish
a Home Base Support Center to ensure that users in the field get swift, courteous and
accurate answers to their questions. NCDPI staff are gathering and categorizing an
expanding list of Frequently Asked Questions which, along with training from expert
staff and vendors, will equip the Support Center staff to help educators with
implementation. Additionally, the contract with core IIS vendor includes 5 years of tier 1
support to answer educator, parent, and student questions about system functionality.
In April, 2013, NCDPI conducted READY III meetings via webinar. Three of those
meetings were specifically about Home Base. During the READY III Home Base
webinar series, attendees learned about Home Base at a high level, watched
demonstrations of the student information and instructional improvement systems of
Home Base, and were able to ask questions and get answers from NCDPI staff. There
were over 20,000 participants in this webinar series.
f) Training
NCDPI is working with the vendors for both the Core IIS functionality and the Educator
Evaluation and Professional Development components to create a single, unified training
plan that addresses the following:
o NCDPI is striving to maximize the adoption, the usage, and the impact the
solution has on student achievement through a blended training program,
consisting of:

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Certification Training for NCDPI (app. 30 slots)
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
Certification Training for LEA Staff @ 8 Regional Sites (app. 1,100
slots)

Online Technical Training for NCDPI Technical Support Staff and LEA
Support Staff (app. 365 slots)
o Topics in the trainings include:

Home Base Intro, Standards, and Materials

Classroom and Benchmark Assessments

State, District & School

Summative Assessments

Educator Evaluation and Professional Development
o There are also Self‐Paced Distance Learning, accessed via PowerSource,
365/24/7:

Large repository of 60+ courses for SIS and IIS, mostly 1 hour in length

Plus 100+ Mastery in Minutes tutorials for both SIS and IIS

Unlimited access. LEAs determine who can access the materials
Training for NCDPI staff has already begun, and training for the districts will begin in
June.
g) Professional Development on the System
Home Base will be featured in the NCDPI Summer Institutes in July 2013. NCDPI will
hold the third round of intensive, blended professional development, sponsored by Race
to the Top, for LEAs and Charter Schools.
All NCDPI divisions, including Curriculum and Instruction, Educator Effectiveness
(formerly Educator Recruitment and Development), Digital Teaching and Learning
(formerly Information and Technology), District and School Transformation, Career and
Technical Education, Accountability, Exceptional Children, and Learning Systems will
participate in and facilitate at the Institutes. NCDPI will provide a hands-on, highly
engaging, two-day professional development experience in each region that supports the
transition to the new NC Standard Course of Study, the North Carolina Educator
Evaluation System (NCEES), the State Accountability System, and Data Literacy.
Summer Institutes 2013 will feature an introduction to Home Base and the Home Base
system will be embedded within the other professional development offerings. For
example, sessions related to Data Literacy will discuss how to include Home Base as one
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place where data can be found and how best to use that data to make instructional and
program decisions. A special session will be offered on how to find quality resources.
Participants will gain familiarity with the OER Rubric used to evaluate resources for
inclusion in Home Base and will have an opportunity to review Home Base resources.
Attendance is expected from every district and RttT Charter School. This summer
institute will illustrate how NCDPI initiatives connect within the Home Base system.
h) inBloom (formerly Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC)/Shared Learning
Infrastructure (SLI))
NCDPI is continuing our work with inBloom and Guilford County Schools on the
inBloom pilot. Use Cases for the pilot have been identified. An inBloom Camp was held
on March 23 and 24 in Durham, NC. During the Camp, coders and educators learned
about inBloom and its relationship to Home Base. Educators in attendance assisted with
helping coders understand what potential applications would help in the classroom and
the coders will begin developing applications. In addition, educators learned about Home
Base and had the opportunity to review resources that will be available in Home Base.
The educators left the camp with a charge to spread the excitement and to share their
knowledge about Home Base.
Additional work with inBloom has been placed on hold until the Software as a Service
Agreement has been approved.
i) Staffing
The Learning Systems division is interviewing candidates to fill two additional content
specialist positions. Additional staff needs are being identified to support the training and
implementation and LEA Partnerships
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Figure 1:
2. Does the State have evidence indicating the quality of implementation for this subcriterion? What is/has the State doing/done as a result of this information?
a) Quality of Implementation
Given that Home Base has not yet been built nor implemented, North Carolina does not
yet have the most important data about the quality of implementation: usefulness to
teachers in improving student outcomes.
That said, there have been efforts on the part of NCDPI to promote successful
implementation. The table below lists evidences regarding quality of development
towards full implementation and how NCDPI is responding.
Evidence
Action as Result
1. Enthusiasm and Increased Interest
among local educators informed about
Home Base
The overwhelming response has been
positive regarding the functionality of the
tool and its potential to revolutionize
teaching and learning.
In response to this, NCDPI has developed
a functional inventory and a set of
reflection questions for LEAs to consider
and has hosted a series of virtual and faceto-face meetings to help LEAs think about
these decisions and plan. Feedback from
LEAs is guiding NCDPI to make strategic
2. District Need for More Information to
Inform Local Decisions on Home
Base Plans
Outreach efforts have surfaced the
need for LEAs to understand how
Home Base might influence their
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Evidence
Action as Result
current resource purchasing strategies.
For instance, many LEAs are
considering whether to drop contracts
with benchmark assessment providers
if Home Base will replace their
current solutions with comparable or
better functionality.
3. Reviewing and Approving Content
Internally, NCDPI is working to
ensure that the content that goes into
Home Base is of the highest quality
while recognizing that this high
standard of quality might lead to a
limited bank of resources. The content
in the system must be both of the
highest quality and extensive enough
to be useful. Initially, NCDPI
personnel are choosing quality over
quantity. This objective is not unique
to North Carolina, particularly as
publishing companies vie for the
Common Core-aligned resources
market.
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decisions about what additional content to
pursue for Home Base.
In addition, NCDPI has begun holding
regional Home Base implementation
planning workshops. These workshops are
hosted by the RESAs, NCDPI and Pearson
and are focused on the Core IIS
functionality, though information is also
provided on the PowerSchool and
Educator Effectiveness pieces. Every
district has been invited to attend these
workshops, and feedback has been very
positive thus far. As of May 24, 2013,
these two-day workshops have been held
in three regions, with five additional
sessions to follow.
NCDPI is considering differentiated
degrees of endorsement of the content
within the system and sampling strategies
as well as building ways to continuously
gather user feedback from educators as
they use the tool. NCDPI staff members
are approaching the content offerings in
Home Base with an eye toward expanding
and culling the content over time, so that
the offerings increase in quality, usability
and depth.
Members of the Home Base User Group,
Home Base Resource Consortium, and
Home Base Stakeholder Committee have
had opportunities to preview the content.
All feedback has been positive. A few
alignments were re-evaluated following
the in-depth review.
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3. What obstacles and/or risks could impact the State’s ability to meet its goals and
performance measures related to this sub-criterion?
Risk
Strategy to Mitigate
Adoption and Sustainability Plans
Because Home Base has many components
that are not required, NC must create a tool
that out-performs other tools in the market.
Many LEAs and schools have expressed
that the potential of Home Base is powerful
but they need more information about
functionality and costs in order to decide
whether to subscribe to the optional
portions.
Communications
•
NCDPI must let the districts and charters
know exactly what to expect, when and at
what cost, in order for the implementation to
be a success. NCDPI must set accurate
expectations for user communities –
expectations that invest educators in using
the tool while also acknowledging that no
tool will address all issues associated with
evaluation of teacher effectiveness.
•
Create a compelling cost-sharing
model that saves LEAs money
Create a training plan that allows for
users to have sufficient training prior
to implementation
Continue to gather user feedback to
ensure tool meets educator needs
Conduct LEA and charter outreach
•
Carefully designing key message
•
Communicating realistic target dates
for milestones
•
Publishing FAQ
•
•
•
Holding regular monthly webinars
Widely distributing biweekly updates
Engaging in speaking engagements
and meetings across the state to talk
about Home Base
Offering Home Base sessions in
conferences across the state
Integrations between the SAS
Operational Datastore and TNL to
move data from authoritative sources
into the Educator Effectiveness system
•
•
•
Project interdependencies
•
The interdependencies among the suite of
products that Home Base offers must be
carefully managed to avoid delay in rollout
and create the most useful functionality.
•
SIS to IIS integration plans are fully
documented.
•
Plans for integrations between the
TNL Educator Effectiveness System
and the IIS and other NCDPI source
systems hare fully documented.
•
Integrations between the NC LOR and
IIS to allow for a federated search
capability are documented and
underway.
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Risk
Strategy to Mitigate
•
Team has developed a content
management plan to ensure content is
in the system by July 1, 2013.
Evaluation: Based on the responses to the previous question, evaluate the State’s
performance and progress to date for this sub-criterion (choose one)
Red (1)
Orange (2)
Yellow (3)
Green (4)2
2
Red – substantially off-track and/or has significant quality concerns; urgent and decisive action is required; Orange –off-track
and/or there are quality concerns; many aspects require significant attention; Yellow –generally on-track and of high or good
quality; only a few aspects require additional attention; Green – on-track with high quality.
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