"This engaging book will guide your journey through the morass of curriculum alignment, development, and assessment. Our school struggled through missteps in curriculum alignment and implementing common assessments without the benefit of Makas' wisdom and experience. I highly recommend this book for teachers, administrators, and interested parents."
-Robert A. Martin, Leadership Consultant
Oakland Schools, Waterford, MI
Raise schoolwide performance with a systematic, teacher-driven approach to curriculum development!
Purposeful curriculum design is essential to attaining consistent academic improvement. Educators often find, however, that a viable curriculum based on mandated standards can be exceedingly challenging to create, implement, and sustain.
In this book, curriculum consultant Elaine Makas provides a step-by-step guide to establishing the processes and documents necessary to build a stable, cohesive curriculum system that aligns to educational benchmarks. Based on the DAILY model (Data, Alignment, Instructional Pace Guides, Local Common Assessment, and Yearly Review), this system deconstructs the curriculum process into sequential steps that facilitate the development of instructional priorities, reveal students in need of intervention, and help ensure continuous process improvement. With numerous templates, samples, and reflective exercises, this book clearly demonstrates how to:
Collect and analyze data, identify expectations, and recognize learning gaps
Develop curriculum maps that align with standards and grade-level subject goals
Pace instruction throughout the year according to specific objectives
Create assessments that predict standardized test performance
Conduct yearly improvement reviews and documentation revisions
An essential resource for all schools or districts, whether struggling or successful, From Mandate to Achievement enables K-12 principals, district administrators, curriculum facilitators, and teacher teams to establish a consistent and accurate curriculum process that increases academic achievement and drives continuous school improvement.
Author Biography:
Elaine Makas Howard has 25 years of experience in education. She has served numerous districts in Michigan in curriculum, career development and counseling processes as a regional director of Instructional Services. She is also a systems consultant with Curriculum Connections, a business she co-owns. Ms. Howard has a specialist degree from Saginaw Valley State University in Educational Leadership with an emphasis on curriculum. She has a master’s degree from Central Michigan University in school guidance and a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in history. She is certified in central office and secondary administration, counseling, and 7-12 social studies secondary education. Ms. Howard’s work experience includes secondary teacher, community education director, and curriculum consultant. She lives in Cass City, Michigan with three of her four sons.
