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Podcast: How Idaho is Exceeding Expectations and Driving Student Achievement Gains in Schools

Posted January 13th, 2010 in Podcasts, Success Stories

Lisa Kinnaman won’t come out and say it, but – in terms of school improvement – the schools and districts who are participating in her projects are thriving.

(Scroll down to the podcast link at the bottom to skip straight to the good stuff.)

As the State School Improvement Coordinator for Idaho, Kinnaman has been hard at work over the past few years figuring out how to get the most out of improvement and professional development dollars. What she and the entire network of educators, administrators, coaches and leaders have done in that time is nothing short of impressive.

In this 24-minute podcast, I talk to her about the nuts and bolts of their program and Lisa lets us in on what’s made Idaho so successful.

She discusses:

• How they’ve strategically partnered with the state’s university network
• How they’ve engaged and trained a powerful contingent of distinguished educators to build capacity
• How they’ve grown the program to serve an astonishing 54 sites statewide
• How they’ve  been able to build an extensive statewide system of support
• How training coaches and investing in teacher-leaders has directly impacted the quality of learning that is happening in the classroom
• How the initiatives have helped to improve student achievement results
• How many of their Title 1 schools have risen to meet AYP – some for two consecutive years

Kinnaman also wrote her dissertation on the program and has meticulously tracked every step of their implementation, tweaks, and successes. She’s an invaluable resource for schools, districts or states looking for a guide map to improvement and I’m honored that she was able to take some time to talk with us about what they’ve done in Idaho.

I hope you’ll enjoy this podcast. We’ll be releasing a transcription of the entire interview in the next few days and will update the blog with the download link as soon as its available. If you’d like to be notified when the transcription is ready, enter your name and email address below and we’ll be sure to notify you. (Be sure to confirm your email address when prompted to ensure that we can get the podcast transcription through your firewalls).

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us.

To listen, hit the “play” button or, if you experience streaming issues, “Download to Desktop” will allow you to download the file and listen to it directly from your computer. Please have a bit of patience as the file loads – it may take a few seconds.

Best,
Heather

 

 Podcast with Lisa Kinnaman [24:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download