History
In 1989 several small school districts began to have a series of discussions about ways to co-operate in order to address the requirement the Montana State accreditation standards placed upon Montana school districts to visit and revise their curriculum on a rotating basis over the next several years. Many of the original 19 school districts had co-operatives for purchasing, special education, and athletics. In the beganing 19 schools contributed initial dues of $3,000 each to form the ACE consortium. Original expenses were for a part time director, travel, substitute teachers, and payment for committee members to work on curriculum. In the summer of 1989 the Alliance for Curriculum Enhancement was formed with Dr. John Voorhis hired as a part time director. The ACE board established the following objectives for immediate implementation:
- Establish a quarterly newsletter to ensure communication.
- Name the consortium ACE (Alliance for Curriculum Enhancement) to accurately reflect the 19 districts from three counties.
- Establish a consortium wide steering committee to represent the constituencies that the schools serve.
- Determine what areas of curriculum the consortium would address first and select the committees for those areas.
That fall a steering committee consisting of at least one representative from each of the 19 districts had been established. The committee worked on a five-year schedule of curriculum review, staff development, and student follow-up. An invitation was extended to other districts to attend curriculum meetings as an un-reimbursed observer and/or participant.
During the following years a series of large scope and sequence notebooks were developed for all the subject areas in the five-year cycle. These were later reviewed to update on a yearly schedule. Schools were encouraged to copy the scope and sequence work and provide their teachers with copies for their subject area. Two professional development days, one in the fall and one in the spring, were established to introduce and to provide the schools with the tools to implement the curriculum. However, it was still up to each individual school to get the job done.
In 1999 Dr. Voorhis retired and Jerry Scott was hired as the part time director of ACE. As a part time county superintendent of schools, he realized that there were many districts that took the scope and sequence notebooks and placed them on their shelves checking the box in the annual state fall report stating they had adopted and reviewed their curriculum as required. He felt the material did not make it into the hands of the majority of the teachers in the consortium. He also felt that the scope and sequence was too lengthy, time consuming, and difficult to use. Jerry suggested to the ACE board that curriculum should be revisited and then revised into a one page per grade level per subject area document that the teachers could easily use. The board agreed that this would be the direction to go, but also decided that this would be a lengthy and costly process. Jerry had reviewed the work done by Ten Sigma and knew they had a product called “Grade Standards by Grade Level” by John Wessels and Clyde Birkholz. The notebook contained a one-page curriculum (standards) per subject area per grade level that could easily be reviewed, edited, and adopted by a school. The standards were aligned with the national standards thus should easily be aligned with the Montana state standards. Ten Sigma gave Jerry references, and he called several schools in various states that spoke very favorably about the product and training provided. The key was that their teachers were using the process and the materials.
Federal monies (class size reduction and title II) received by the ACE districts provided the funds to buy the books, hire the consultants and start the process. In the fall 2000 John Wessels and Clyde Birkholz did a two-day workshop for “scout team” leaders from each of the ACE schools. The Scout Team would become the contacts for the other staff members in their schools. On the following Monday all of the teachers and administrators gathered for a 2-hour review of the material the scout team received. This was followed by all K – 12 teachers separating into subject areas to review the curriculum standards published by Ten Sigma with the task to make any editorial changes they felt necessary. The changes were made and the groups gathered once again for 3 hours to make the final document. Each ACE school received a notebook and a disk containing the standards/curriculum with the following instructions: By the end of the year 1) each teacher shall post their standards in their classroom for all to see. 2) Each teacher shall teach to the standards making notes of what worked and what did not work. 3) Each teacher shall produce and use at least three rubrics and three performance assessments for one or more of their classes.
The result of the work done in two years was a product that is being used by the teachers, the students, and the parents. A target of minimum standards to be taught at each grade level in each subject area that are aligned to state and national standards and that give a longitudinal and vertical guidance as to what is taught.
In the fall of 2001 we gathered again to make one more edit on the standards/curriculum. ACE also published the K – 6 curriculum in a booklet form for each district to hand out to their teachers and parents. The booklets were also distributed as a disk so schools could add their own name, logo, etc. The schools could also contact Valley Printers in Bridger to have their booklets printed.
In 2001 the final product ACE purchased for the now 30 members schools was rubric maker software from Ten Sigma along with professional development on how to use it.
Feed back to the ACE board indicates that the material is being used in the classroom. It has provided guidance to teachers as to the minimum curriculum requirements that must be taught in each grade level and each subject area. This information is also communicated to the parents and the students so there are no surprises and no moving targets.
The consortium has continued to grow with new schools joining each year. In the fall of 2006 ACE has 39 member schools.