It’s a good time to be a consultant |
On Board Online • March 11, 2013
By George Basler
Special Correspondent
Implementing the new Common Core standards is a major undertaking, and officials in the Hamilton Central School District felt they needed some outside help.
So for the past several years, the 600-student Madison County district has spent $25,000 to $40,000 annually for consultants who have provided staff training and curriculum mapping assistance.
“It has made the transition to the Common Core almost seamless. Our teachers were ready for the changes in teaching methods and curriculum,” Superintendent Diana Bowers said.
Hamilton isn’t alone in seeking outside expertise. A recent survey by Education Week’s EPE Research Center found 34 percent of responding teachers had received some of their Common Core training from consultants and independent providers.
“Being an educational consultant is a wonderful way to make a living right now,” said Kate Gerson, a senior fellow specializing in the Common Core for the State Education Department (SED). “Everybody wants to know if this is the real deal. And what do I have to do to make it work.”
At the same time, textbook publishers are re-branding their materials as aligned with the Common Core.
New York City officials held a news conference Feb. 28 to announce that they plan to spend $56 million for new textbooks and materials to tailor learning to the new standards. The city will procure the materials through five vendors, the city’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky, told The New York Times.
Some districts view new materials as all they can afford. “We did not have time and money that we could spend the next two or three years working with a consultant to align curriculum,” said Andy Irvin, assistant superintendent for personnel and instruction at the Carmel Central School District.
Instead, Carmel bought the reading program Journeys Common Core, copyrighted by the educational publishing company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Using this material, teachers are meeting in committees to develop instructional strategies that meet the new standards, Irvin said.
Critical friends
One service that a good consultant can provide is the perspective of an outsider, said John Kendall, senior director with McREL, a private education and research organization. A consultant can be “a critical friend” who takes an objective look at a district’s instructional strategies and what needs to be done to align them to the Common Core, he said.
“Sometimes, you need somebody who is not in the thick of things,” agreed Eric Coriale, a teacher and coordinator of innovation and enrichment in the Hamilton school district.
In the past, Hamilton has worked with consultants from the Public Education and Business Coalition of Colorado and Columbia Teachers College in revising its reading and writing instruction. Most recently, it retained the consulting firm LitLife to help in curriculum mapping and training teachers to teach the Common Core standards.
Consultants can provide specific areas of expertise and research-based help, said Coriale, who has been with the district for eight years.
“Our consultants don’t just come in and preach to us. They roll up their sleeves and get into the classroom as mentors and role models. That’s what you want,” he emphasized.
Picking a consultant
Choosing the right consultant can be the hardest part. Some are affiliated with publishers, some are affiliated with research organizations and some are independent.
It’s a case of caveat emptor – let the buyer beware, said Daniel White, district superintendent of Monroe 1 BOCES. “People who are really good and know what they’re doing can be helpful, but make no mistake about it, educational consulting is a big business,” he said.
If districts choose to go the consultant route, they need to use a concrete set of criteria in evaluating these firms, including their knowledge of New York’s standards.
“You want to see examples of successful training. Do they have a quality record? What is the background of the individuals doing the training? At BOCES, when we bring in a consultant, we’re looking for specific expertise,” White said.
A firm’s accountability is equally important. And accountability should go beyond offering the required training. Districts should ask questions, including to what degree did districts implement a consultant’s recommendations, and what was the end result in terms of student achievement, educational experts said.
White has another piece of advice: Instead of hiring a national consultant, which can cost between $2,000 and $8,000 a day, districts should look for local or regional experts who can provide the same expertise at less cost. A local BOCES can help in this, White said.
Whatever route districts decide to go, implementing the Common Core is a long-term process. Professional development, whether it’s done by a consultant or not, means nothing unless district administrators make sure it gets into the classroom, said Gerson, of the State Education Department.