District presents 'ambitious instruction' initiatives including literacy and cross-curricular ACT work

Milwaukee Public Schools staff reported on the districtinitiative labeled "ambitious instruction," which aligns curriculum, coaching and professional development across subjects and grade bands. Chrissy Washington (Early Learning Manager) and Dr. John Hill (Director of College and Career Readiness) presented the plan and examples during the Feb. 19 SACI meeting.

Initiatives described included:
- An ACT performance improvement plan that pairs career and technical education (CTE) teachers with math, English language arts and science teachers to co-teach ACT-aligned lessons on data interpretation (science), math modeling and argumentative writing (ELA). The effort covers grades 9through 11 with ACT testing in March and pre-ACT in April.
- Project Lead The Way (PLTW) in 34 schools reaching roughly 9,000 students, using hands-on problem solving to reinforce rigorous, grade-level content in STEM areas.
- Early-literacy training and quality initiatives: district implementation of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and ECERS (environmental rating scales), and ongoing LETRS training for teachers and coaches aimed at science-of-reading practices in early grades.
- Math supports including the counting-collections curriculum and adopted high-quality instructional materials with routines for mathematical discourse.

Presenters emphasized the need for time and sustained coaching to change outcomes; administrators said recent textbook adoptions and curriculum changes will not yet show up in the 2024 NAEP results but are intended to improve later assessments. The presentation also described district efforts to embed literacy across content areas (science, social studies) and to use calibration, classroom observations and targeted teams to support schools identified for additional help. District staff said early qualitative feedback from pilot-support teams was positive and that further data collection will continue throughout the year.

Committee members asked about training progress, the extent of LETRS completion across teachers, and how instructional changes will be monitored; district officials said LMS records track professional development completions and that the district will continue to report progress.