How Are States Doing It?

Across the country, state education leaders are undertaking a range of activities to support adoption of high quality instructional materials, many of which are OER. These efforts have taken off in a relatively short period of time, and have created momentum for similar efforts nationwide. State leaders are employing four critical strategies to support this work. First, the majority have built collaborations across states, as well as within them. Second, they have developed a communications strategy to share what they are doing with other key stakeholders. Third, they have identified different sources of funding to sustain their initiatives. Finally, several states have established policies to support this work.

OER has inspired a range of collaboration efforts. Across the nation, states are collaborating with other states through communities of practice to elevate best practices related to open resources. Within states, education agencies are collaborating with other agencies and local universities to better leverage and align each other’s efforts to move high-quality OER forward.

Sources: “#GoOpen States,” Office of Educational Technology, https://tech.ed.gov/open/states/; and “Our History,” Open Up Resources, http://openupresources.org/open-up-resources-history/.

One of the promises of OER is that it allows for a more open system of sharing across classrooms, districts, and states. Collaboration, then, is a natural byproduct of OER work that further advances best practices, resource development, and partnerships across the community. Through interviews with education leaders, we found that OER has provided fertile ground for collaboration that otherwise might not have existed, and states are leveraging these partnerships to enhance and advance OER use.

Between States

In 2015, the Department of Education launched the #GoOpen campaign to encourage states, school districts, and educators to expand the use of OER. The goal of the campaign is to provide all students with high-quality OER that are affordable, relevant, and equitable. As of 2018, 20 states have joined the #GoOpen movement. These states regularly engage in calls to discuss technological strategies, content repositories and state websites, and other activities needed to support OER.¹ Bobby Keener, Virginia’s chief technology innovations officer, told us that the #GoOpen initiative has created a community of practice that legitimizes state work, provides a platform for sharing new strategies, and cultivates a trusted pool of resources. Many of these conversations have explicitly focused on the quality of OER. Said Michigan’s Michelle Ribant, “#GoOpen helped [us] get smart about OER by adding alignment and standards to the work.”

Another community of practice focused on high-quality instructional materials is the K–12 OER Collaborative. In 2014, the Learning Accelerator launched the K–12 OER Collaborative as a 12-state planning effort aimed at addressing the lack of comprehensive, high-quality, standards-aligned, full-year OER for grades K–12 in ELA and math. Input from the multi-state cohort—along with CCSSO, Creative Commons, Lumen Learning, Achieve, Student Achievement Partners, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the State Instructional Materials Review Association (SIMRA), and the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics—led to the launch of Open Up Resources, a nonprofit committed to developing the highest quality open curricula. The organization’s full-year middle school math curriculum by Illustrative Mathematics and K–5 ELA curriculum by EL Education are among the most highly-rated materials reviewed by EdReports.²

Other state-state collaborations have arisen more informally. Wisconsin and Michigan, for example, share geographical proximity and similar contexts which allows them to more easily collaborate. Working with Wisconsin, Michigan has considered how to leverage OER Commons to develop its own state microsite to host OER content. According to Michelle Ribant, the states have also worked with Utah to consider how they can leverage OER Commons to share resources across states. Maryland is also seeking collaboration with neighbors; according to Val Emrich, it has recently invited some West Virginia teachers to participate in its fall 2018 regional summit focused on OER learning.

Across States, Education Service Agencies, and Districts

Many states recognize that alignment between state and district-led efforts is essential to advancing OER. Virginia’s Bobby Keener stresses that the limiting factor for the success of OER is often stakeholder involvement. “Remember that you have stakeholders who are all over the place,” he said. “You have them at all levels—state, district, and school level.” With this knowledge, Keener said that Virginia is careful to bring together the expertise of these stakeholders, including local librarians who have helped to curate high-quality OER.

North Carolina actively works to connect initiatives across its state education agency so that digital content and broader instructional strategies align. North Carolina’s Verna Lalbeharie works closely with the K–12 Standards, Curriculum, and Instruction team. She said, “we’ve launched an awareness campaign so that our curriculum leaders at the state education agency and across the state know what our OER strategy is, and help us determine if we’re on the right track.”

Washington also promotes shared learning opportunities between the state, its regional education service districts (ESDs), and its school districts. Washington partners with its nine ESDs to host regional OER events where district bright spots and expertise are highlighted, and where voices from local, regional, and state levels are brought together. “By having a program at the state level,” said Barbara Soots, “we can…shine a light on districts that are doing really good work. They can talk about what has worked for them, including the benefits and challenges [of OER].”

Between K–12 and Higher Ed

Some states are leveraging the expertise of their higher education institutions to assist with content development, funding, and thought partnership. Michelle Ribant said that state universities and community colleges have played an integral role in creating OER. The University of Michigan, Michigan Tech, and Michigan State have produced digital content and organizational documents for K–12 education. Modules produced by these universities are designed primarily for supplemental online personalized learning, a focus for the state’s OER initiative. Additionally, Lansing Community College, Grand Valley State University, and Michigan Colleges Online have been essential strategic partners for the OER initiative planning at the state level. Ribant explained that in education, “kids are supposed to collaborate, so we should too as a state.”

Val Emrich said that in Maryland, the K–12 community works closely with its university system. As directed by Senate Bill 494, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has been collaborating with the state university system to expand eTextbook and OER efforts. Moving forward, Emrich sees potential for a shared OER repository between K–12 and higher education. This partnership can also impact how preservice teachers learn, as state universities work with MSDE to shape programs that help teachers-in-training better understand and use OER.

OER can only be used well and at scale if open licenses, educational standards, and the materials themselves are widely understood. Communicating the basics of OER, then, is a pillar of several states’ OER strategies. Communication strategies include state-led OER events, virtual communication through social media and newsletters, and teacher word of mouth.

Through in-person convenings, states are able to promote deeper understanding of OER development, licensing, and vetting of content at the local level. These events also often serve as networking opportunities where attendees can connect in person about the work, sometimes sparking future collaboration across districts, organizations, and regions. Virtual communications allow states to spread information quickly, efficiently, and economically. Still, some states find that teachers tend to trust other teachers more than state departments of education or other external organizations; teachers, then, can be some of the most effective messengers of high quality OER options within states. State communication strategies have built OER momentum, facilitating sharing and adapting of best practices and resources by others.

Hosting Events

State-hosted OER events act as both vehicles for collaboration and communication. According to Val Emrich, MSDE has developed OER cohorts to represent local education agencies (LEA) statewide and attend regional two-day workshops. During these workshops, the LEA cohorts learn more about OER considerations and develop strategic plans to implement OER in their districts. Maryland’s OER cohorts communicate throughout the year to build upon discussions and share new and developing ideas about how OER can better support student learning.

Similarly, when Virginia became a #GoOpen state, the Virginia Department of Education started conducting OER roadshows, 30-minute sessions on OER for local audiences. According to Bobby Keener, the state also developed a tool, the OER Adoption Maturity Model, to communicate what it means to “go open” as a district.³ The first phase of this model, “OER Initiate,” is all about communication. The model suggests that before districts can effectively use OER, they need to build general OER awareness, learn about OER and its potential cost-saving benefits in depth, discover existing high-quality OER options, and engage in dialogue within and between districts.

Social Media, Newsletters, and Virtual Communication

States are also leveraging social media to spread OER news and engage in conversations about state progress, challenges, and other relevant topics. In Indiana, the state-led INeLearn network of educators engages in weekly Twitter chats to explore a range of teaching and learning topics, including pedagogy, digital citizenship, and the use of OER to improve student learning. This network has a wide reach; as of April 2018, INeLearn had 11,100 followers. Molly Yowell, digital content grant coordinator in the Indiana Department of Education and English teacher at Danville Community High School, said, “it’s neat to see how collaborative our state is, and everyone lives in the spirit of sharing—that’s what gives us such potential as we move forward with our OER work.”

Other states keep in touch with districts and teachers through email communications. In Utah, for example, Sarah Young told us that individual subject areas have opt-in listservs for teachers where news and resources can be shared. Frequent communication encourages engagement about curriculum between states and districts, allowing for local stakeholder feedback about available instructional materials.

Teacher Word of Mouth

Utah has found that one of the best ways to spread the word about OER best practices, particularly as they relate to using OER to supplement curriculum, is through teacher users themselves. Young works with Utah’s 41 districts to identify high-impact educators to be involved in state-level OER projects, including reviewing open curricula for standards alignment. These teachers also serve as OER ambassadors, acting as liaisons between their districts and the state, supporting fellow teachers in making informed decisions about OER use.

With the wide range of work being undertaken across the country, the funding models that support these efforts vary widely from state to state. Though OER are free to access online, it takes time and funding to create or vet high-quality open content. There are also costs associated with updating, adapting, and printing resources for students to use. States and districts are responsible for ensuring students have access to curriculum, whether through procuring proprietary materials or investing in OER.

To identify public funding to sustain this work, states do not necessarily need to find new dollars, but instead may need to redesign their budgets. Federal and state agency funds, primarily dispersed as competitive grants, have been a major source of financial support for states and districts that have worked to adopt, develop, or share OER. State legislatures have also appropriated funding to support state work, though dollar amounts have varied significantly from state to state.

Federal and State Agency Funding

At the federal level, significant funding was made available to states through competitive programs over the past few years to implement a wide range of reforms—while the majority of states focused on other systems changes, a few states chose to focus on curriculum improvement. For example, using a portion of its $700 million federal Race to the Top (RTTT) grant—a program that the Obama Administration created to spark and sustain innovation in the states—New York was able to develop the EngageNY ELA and math curricula to provide a clear model for high-quality, standards aligned curricula.⁴ Maryland used a portion of its $250 million federal RTTT grant to update and create new open materials aligned with its state curriculum frameworks.⁵ Some states that received RTTT funding to support the creation of longitudinal data systems were able to build out those data systems into larger state websites and repositories that host open content.

States have also used competitive funds to promote district work to innovate and improve upon curriculum. Over the past few years, Washington has offered small grants to districts to adapt, develop, or implement OER, disbursing over $400,000 in total.⁶ These grants aim to innovate using open curricula but also support teachers as they review these open resources for quality and begin to use them in the classroom. According to Barbara Soots, districts have typically received between $10,000 and $15,000 to help support this work; the largest award was $20,000. “It doesn’t totally cover the scope of the work, but it provides a supplement,” she said.

There are a variety of other sources of federal and state agency funding that states can leverage to support their work. For example, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Program, funded through Title IV of ESSA, can be used by districts to promote and support the use of OER. The language of Title IV says that states may choose to use funds in order to make “instructional content widely available through open educational resources, which may include providing tools and processes to support local educational agencies in making such resources widely available.”⁷ With increased Title IV funding through the spending bill recently passed in Congress, states and districts may choose to use these dollars to support OER initiatives.

For some of the technical components of the work, especially in thinking through building a repository, states have looked to state technology funds for support. Michigan, for example, has used its Technology Readiness Infrastructure Grant to help support its work. These grants have supported a range of activities related to increasing capacity to support personalized instruction and support online learning.⁸

State Legislature

In Utah, Texas, and Washington, legislatures have specifically funded pieces of the work. The actual funding levels have varied widely, depending on state budget context, as well as the scope of the work being undertaken. For example, the Utah legislature appropriated $600,000 in 2012 for the creation of middle school math textbooks. In Texas, the legislature appropriated $10 million in 2015 to support the creation of high school STEM materials. During its most recent legislative session, it appropriated another $20 million to develop ELA curricula.⁹

The Washington state legislature passed a bill in 2012 supporting the development of OER for K–12, directing OSPI to develop a library of openly licensed courseware aligned with state learning standards, and to provide professional development and guidance for their creation and ongoing improvement. According to state legislation, this was an opportunity to both “reduce the expenses that districts would otherwise incur in purchasing these materials,” as well as “provide districts and students with a broader selection of materials, and materials that are more up-to-date.”¹⁰ Since the initial bill was passed, the state has invested $1.25 million in the project. Though the original bill was due to expire in June 2018, new legislation passed this March removed the expiration date due to the project’s ongoing success.

In addition to collaborating with a range of stakeholders, developing a clear communication strategy, and obtaining funding to sustain ongoing work, several states have also worked to ensure the policy environment is inclusive and supportive of work regarding high-quality curriculum and OER. Policies often signal state priorities and ensuring that state policies are supportive of OER efforts is a key piece of integrating the work into broader curriculum reform efforts and sustaining this work moving forward. While state policies often touch indirectly upon curriculum, they can influence what options districts consider, how funds can be spent, and more.

There are a range of ways that states have looked to integrate OER into their policy frameworks. Several have included this work in their state ESSA plans, providing a clear framework for how OER fits into their overall educational vision. Others have considered ways in which they need to amend procurement policies, or provide additional guidance, to accommodate open curricula. Finally, considering the many ways in which state and district stakeholders develop educational content, a few have explored open licensing policies that provide explicit guidance on ownership rights for resources developed with public funds.

State Plans Under ESSA

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, every state is required to submit a plan that reflects its vision and goals, along with detailed information about how it will meet those goals, in a broad range of areas. Within their plans, nine states indicated that OER would be a part of their strategy for making high-quality instructional content widely available. Oklahoma state leaders emphasized their ongoing OER work and collaboration with other states in their ESSA plan, noting that “resources are continuously being vetted and updated on the OSDE website for access by educators. Specific vetting of open education resources (OER) is underway, as Oklahoma is part of the USDE’s #GoOpen campaign.”¹¹ This statement signals the range of work that state leaders have undertaken to support districts in selecting curriculum and instructional materials.

In Delaware, the ESSA plan “recognizes the need and a desire for a thoroughly vetted repository of quality open educational resources aligned with Delaware standards in every discipline/subject and at every level.” The ESSA plan notes that Delaware has developed an OER strategy for providing these materials to educators across the state and is working to establish a state content repository to share high-quality open curriculum and instructional materials. According to Alyssa Moore, executive director of the Delaware Center for Educational Technology, “this work is a priority, and having it in our ESSA plan gives us backing for doing it.”

Procurement Policies

While OER are openly available online and free of charge, there are many ways in which procurement policies can introduce real or perceived barriers to their adoption. Every state has a different approach to how it manages the process of reviewing and purchasing curriculum and instructional materials, and these differences in policies can make it difficult for both districts and content creators to know how best to put high-quality materials in front of students.¹² In several states, however, these processes are being updated to show districts how open materials can be considered alongside proprietary content.

For example, the Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) helps to set model policies for school boards throughout the state. In 2015, the state school board updated its model policy for curriculum development and adoption. This new model policy recommends that districts establish more frequent course design review, based upon student needs, rapidly changing demographics, and available funding; previously, districts were encouraged to review materials every seven years. Districts are encouraged to consider OER based upon the same criteria as other proprietary resources.¹³

Open Licensing Policies

As states spend public dollars to create educational content—whether it be curricular resources or other kinds of materials—a few leading states have begun to put into place policies that require these materials be released using an open content license. Nationally, open licensing policies have become increasingly common. The federal government has led the way, with the Departments of Labor and Education both adopting open licensing rules for educational materials produced through competitive grant programs.¹⁴

In 2016, Washington’s education agency adopted a new Copyright and Open Licensing Policy, requiring any educational materials produced by staff, contractors, or grantees to be released under an open content license. The purpose of the policy is to allow districts and other education stakeholders “to realize the educational impact from the substantial investments the state, the federal government, and private foundations have made (and will continue to make) in educational resources created by OSPI employees.”¹⁵ Washington is the first state to adopt such a comprehensive policy, though many more states have added open content licensing requirements for specific grants and contracts.