2005 NCSS Board Meeting-Strategic Plan Review

Goal A Education/Knowledge

A.1 Increase Opportunities for social studies professionals to strengthen theoretical, pedagogical and content knowledge.

Status: Partially Achieved Progress: Satisfactory Positives: summerworkshops, publications, annual conference Negatives: lack of engagement in theoretical discussions

Recommendations

Promote Theoretical Engagement.

• Invite teachers, thinkers, researchers to engage in conversations at conferences, electronic discussion forums, and tele-conferences. low

Develop a Middle Level Hournal low

A.2 Increase Research to enhance the effectiveness of social studies teaching Low

Status: Partially Achieved Progress; Unsatisfactory Positives: Research and Practice in Social Ed Negatives: "more needs to be done."

Recommendations

Support grant applications and FASSE

Continue to work with CUFA

A.3 Improve and increase the variety of information and materials for effective social studies instruction HIGH

Status: Partially Achived

Recommendations

*Invite more outstanding lesson plans for the website *Index lessons to the NCSS standards *Create Middle Level Journal *Better publicize NCSS standards

A.4 Increase public and private funding of programs to address social studies needs

Recommendations

• continue Summer Leadership Institute
• revise and update Toolkit
• help and encourage members to lobby legislators
• secure more funding
• get professional grant writing help

Other possible strategies

>* Website-- "clearinghouse" of materials, resources    
>* Work with NCATE. Forging strong links with preservice    
>* content focus for annual conference sessions 
>* summer professional development  
>* CMS collecting practice examples 

>* Activities   
>* FASSE-inquiry grant? 
>* Texas Instruments Project?   
>* Difficulties 
>* Not focued on this   
>* Possibilities    
>* possibility of working with CUFA to develop a research agenda.   
>* Research Committee can be link to CUFA?  
>* Research Committee website   
>*  
>* A.3  
>* Publications articles    
>* Conference   
>* Website-paticularly website archives.    

>* >* CMS   
>* Possibilities    
>* Partner with CUFA. Would NCSS support help? Is there money for our   
projects.

Goal B Advocacy/Visability Goal

B.1 Increase members' knowledge and understanding of educational policies and the political and regulatory process HIGH

Status: Partial Achievement Barriers to sucess:

• lack of knowledge, e.g., which delegations to target *awarness missing of which orgs on which to "piggyback"
• congressional education aides lack of knowledge about social studies
• distruct of politics

Recommendations

• Board members advocacy retreat

  • to provide 'experts' to attend state aouncil meetings
  • Letter writting campaign
  • Join with other organizations to mount advocacy campaigns
  • Research on connection between federal funding and teacher effectivemess in various fields
  • encourage ex officio membership on state council boards for state department of education person

B.2 Increase legislative, regulatory, business, media, and public awareness of "citizenship

B.3 Increase the visibility, credibility, involvement and influence of NCSS and its members among public policy-makers at the local, state and national levelseducation" issues

Status: Partial Barriers to sucess:

• fear of controversy
• loack of time and resources
• no inclusion in NCLB
• lack of state testing/marginalization of social studies
• NAEP problems

Recommendations

• more PBS/documentary TV profile
• PTA/parent/homeschool collaboration
• work with other state organizations, e.g., bar associations, scouts, etc.
• NCSS should evaluate state standards based on a rubric created by expert practioners and publish
• create state of social studies in states to be written annually by affiliate councils
• surveys of "average man-on-the-street"

B.4 Strenghten collaborative relationships with other educational organizations on issues of mutual concern

Status: Partial Barriers: * content "silos" * only civics and history tested, mostly

Recommendations

• continue outreach
• netowrking as NCLB "allies", e.g., with music teachers
• increase links with business --ask them what they need in employees

B.5 Strengthen links and interactions with the private and public sector

Status: Partial Barriers: * teachers are very classroom oriented * no thinking "outside the box", or beyond the usual types of corporations * fear of "contamination" by business

Recommendations

• associate memberships for parents or other non-social studies constituencies
• support service learning project

Other strategies (including ongoing)

>* B1   
>* Legislative Updates  
>* annual conference session/forum  
>* Possibilities    
>* More focused updates 
>* Once-per-month update for council presidents 
>* Publish in TSSP. 
>* Tie with a particular action they could take.    
>* Political and Regulatory process primer on website   
>* Publish state coalition information

Goal C. Membership

C.1 Increase joing membership among the local, state and regional councils and NCSS HIGH

Status: Partial Progress: Satisfactory

Recommendations

• continue brokering programs
• share membership from state counils for marketing purposes
• more board of directors visability at state council conference
• expand program of joining state councils with NCSS dues renewals

C.2 Increase the membership participation and value derived from NCSS for currently un-represented and under-represented groups

Status: Not achieved Progress: Unsatisfactory

Recommendations

• scholarships for teachers from low performing schools to attend conference, or to join NCSS
• target low performing schools for marketing

C.3 Increase the retention rate for all membership categories HIGH

Status: Partial Progress:

Recommendations

• investigate providing automatic annual renewal
• partner with third parties to offer member benefits, e.g., discounts at retail chains for members
• advertise benefits to members--include reminders in renewal notices similar to information provided to new members.
• provide renewal notices by email
• provide more reliable and consistent benefits
• provide a new, recurring benefit to encourage renewal (e.g., publication collection on cd-rom)
• more frequent communication with membership

C. 4 Expand the number and reach of NCSS advocates in every educational environment

Status: Partial

Recommendations

• target home schoolers, private, alternative, parocial and charter schools
• market to indrect influences-PTA, parents and perhaps encourage them to buy memberships for teachers, or schools
• direct contact with pre-service teachers *place ads in union, school, and local publications

C.5 Expand the sharing of best/model practices among NCSS members

Status: Partial

Recommendations

• discussion areas on the web
• provide opportunities to creat community (grass roots)
• provide websites for SIGS

C.6 Increase collaboration with each of the social studies discipline organizations

Status: Good

Recommendations

• Reciprocal agreements with organzations to provide benefits (e.g., conference registration at member rate for members of other organizations.)

Goal D. Citizenry Goal

D.1 Increasecooperation with other disciplines and grouups to promote and educated and engaged citizenry

D.2 Increase medial awareness and public perception of the importance of citizenship education

Recommendations

• increase public awareness of connection of events and social studies
• prioritize connections with other groups to be time effective

D.3 Increase collaboration with the the business community on common goals to create an educated and engaged citizenry, informed consumers, and skilled workers HIGH

Recommendations

• focus on ties to business and seeing long-run effect of the education of the future workforce on the bottom line

D. 4 Increase the use of NCSS materials regarding citizenship education and standards in pre-service content and methods courses

D.5 Increase the use of NCSS citizenship materials in district in-service programs

Recommendations (D4 and D5)

• communicate better what NCSS has and does in these areas both internally and externally

D. 6 Increase best practices based on research (moved to Goal E.)

Goal E. Social Studies Excellence Goal

E. 1 Broaden public undertanding an support of the nature and importance of social studies

E. 2 Strengthen NCSS outreach to local, state and regional affiliates

E. 3 (New language) Help states develop standards based on the NCSS standards

Recommendations

• cultivate at the national office a list of possible experts regarding the standards and standards developemnt to call on
• make NCSS a "go to" place for standards assistance.

E.4 Increase awareness of NCSS social studies standards

E. 5 Increase the use and quality of assessment based on the NCSS standards, curriculum, and instruction

Recommendations

• Create a model based on NCSS standards for states to use

E.6 Strengthen members' skills for interdisciplinary teaching (Delete-duplicate of objectives in Goal A)

-- TimDaly - 06 Sep 2005