Race To The Top Cartography

There’s no shortage of idioms and expressions about the need to know where you are going. Lewis Carroll said something like, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there” – a remark echoed in “Any Road” on George Harrison’s last [posthumous] record. Except for the most carefree among us, most of us are working diligently, if not frantically, to get to a better educational place.

We all have a lot on our plate: Standards, Data, Practice, and Culture all have to change and have to change at the same time [now]. For Standards, this means the Common Core, and soon enough, Next Generation Science. For Data, this means common formative and interim assessments. For Standards, this means APPRs for teachers and principals. For Culture, this means we simply have to change the way we do business – that actual, honest-to-goodness “co-laboring on the right work” has to become our fundamental operating system. Each of these four areas is a heavy lift in their own right. To try to do all four simultaneously is a monumental task that will require Herculean efforts on the part of each and every educator. The four are so interdependent, however, that to look at them in isolation could lead us off in different directions. So, we must make sure that they are interconnected and that they do all point in the same direction: students ready for their future in the 21st Century (College, Career, and Citizenship readiness).

To get “there” from “here” is quite a journey. Until the app is developed or address ready to be entered into the GPS, we’ve developed a good, old-fashioned road map to lead us to that destination. Our RTTT Road Map can be used to point you to your destination and it can be used to locate yourself in order to know where you stand in relation to your destination. We’ve already found it useful while working with districts to help them plot their course and, when necessary, to double-back a little ways in order to make sure that they are ready to move ahead.

Our Race To The Top Road Map, while certainly not perfect and certainly not appropriate for all contexts, might help you on your journey. Unfold it, locate yourself, and take off. Good luck!