The Great Lakes Comprehensive Center (GLCC) was one of 15 regional comprehensive centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education for the October 2012–September 2019 grant cycle of the Comprehensive Centers Program. The centers provided capacity-building technical assistance to state education agencies (SEAs) in their implementation and administration of programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, reauthorized in 2015 as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
During the grant period, GLCC worked closely with SEAs in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio to support their efforts to implement, scale up, and sustain initiatives statewide and to lead and support their school districts and schools in using evidence-based policies, practices, programs, and interventions to improve student outcomes. A selection of the center’s state-based projects and key resources are featured below. Partners in GLCC’s work included AIR and RMC Research Corporation.
Key Projects
Reducing School Suspensions and Expulsions in Michigan
To address the issue of outdated discipline practices, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) reached out to the Great Lakes Comprehensive Center (GLCC) to help form the Michigan School Discipline Task Force in 2013. developed three items: 1) a model policy to reduce suspensions and expulsions; 2) a revised student code of content; and 3) an online toolkit that schools and district can use to help them implement the new policy and code. Learn more about how GLCC supported Michigan to reduce school suspension and expulsions: project highlights and the brief, Reducing School Suspensions and Expulsions in Michigan (PDF).
Building Strategic Technical Assistance Partnerships in Michigan
GLCC helped organize the MDE’s technical assistance partnerships into a cohesive and coherent online system: the Strategic Technical Assistance Online Repository where service partnerships can share resources, align objectives to the Department’s strategic plan, Top 10 in 10, and support best practices to prevent duplicative practices and approaches. As a result of their work with GLCC, the MDE’s Strategic Technical Assistance Online Repository now serves as a national model for other large state school systems looking to increase collaboration among their many technical assistance service providers and best align technical assistance to state’s priorities.
Diversifying the Educator Workforce in Ohio
The Ohio Department of Education recognized the disparity between the state’s student population of color and the population of educators of color and asked the GLCC and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL) to provide guidance and expertise. First, the three partners sought to understand the problem and set priorities for future action. Once there was a greater understanding about where the teacher diversity gaps existed in Ohio, GLCC and GTL worked to identify evidence-based strategies and best practices that would help the state recruit and retain diverse, high-quality educators. Through this process, GLCC and GTL published several resources to help states, districts, and schools identify and visualize its diversity gaps.
Indiana PreK-12 Literacy Framework
Through the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy program that funds SEAs to support better early-literacy instruction, the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) convened a state literacy team and developed a literacy plan: the Indiana PreK–12 Literacy Framework. The literacy framework is also incorporated into the Multi-Tiered System of Supports framework and aligned with the IDOE strategic plan. GLCC provided support to IDOE by convening and facilitating the IDOE literacy team and helping with the development, refinement, and implementation of the literacy framework.
Key Resources
2017 | IMPACT STORY
Indiana Revises Its Formula for Teacher Performance Pay
GLCC provided technical assistance to the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction to revise policy to create greater equity and efficiency in performance pay grants for teachers.
2014 | IMPACT STORY
Addressing Michigan’s Achievement Gap
The MDE requested GLCC’s support as it developed and implemented a statewide strategy to close achievement gaps in reading and mathematics. As MDE formulated its approach to addressing the achievement gap, GLCC provided access to resources on adopting an “equity lens” approach to improving student achievement and supported MDE in building cross-state relationships to learn from related successes in other states and districts.
2015 | IMPACT STORY
Linking Teacher Evaluations in Ohio to Professional Learning
GLCC helped build the organizational capacity of the OHE to support the state’s districts and schools in the design and implementation of professional learning opportunities for teachers based on teacher performance evaluation results.
2017 | RESOURCE
Connecting Social and Emotional Learning to Michigan’s School Improvement Framework
GLCC and GTL collaborated with the MDE to develop a guide to support administrators, school leadership teams, and educators (e.g., early childhood educators, caregivers, teachers, support staff, and afterschool educators) in the implementation and integration of the Michigan Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies into the structure and daily routines of their schools.