Open Education 2015

Achieve will present its recently released recommended state policies that can support the use of OER in classrooms as part of college- and career-ready standards implementation in U.S. K-12 education. Additionally, Achieve will share key learnings from the development of these recommendations, though conversations and feedback provided from state leaders and OER experts at partner organizations.

Achieve's OER policy recommendations are centered on two main tenets, which provide a basis and framework for additional recommendations:

- States and districts should use OER as part of their strategies to support the implementation of college- and career-ready standards. Furthermore, when public funds are used, the instructional materials created should be openly licensed.

- States and districts should ensure that all instructional materials being used, including OER, are high quality and aligned to college- and career-ready standards.

The additional recommendations below support the integrity of implementing high-quality OER aligned to college- and career-ready standards:

- States should develop strategies for using OER to support college- and career-ready standards implementation. These strategies should include goals and relevant timelines as well as an individual or team of individuals to lead these efforts.

- States and districts should use specific criteria and review processes to measure alignment to the college- and career-ready standards to ensure that OER being used meet the level of quality needed to support teaching to those standards.

- States and districts should use OER to leverage common standards as an opportunity for collaboration in the development, refinement and continuous improvement of OER instructional materials.

- States and districts should include OER in professional learning activities. This professional learning can increase knowledge and awareness of OER and their benefits and bolster the reputation of OER among educators, administrators and other stakeholders as materials that can be of high quality.

As part of this presentation, Achieve will highlight state and district actions that exemplify these recommendations in action. Additionally, key learnings from the development of these recommendations will be shared, such as:

- Recommendations like these have a broad base of support between states, funders and partner organizations that advocate for the use of OER.

- Each of these recommendations are actionable in some form across states; however local context can and should inform how these recommendations are enacted locally.

- Future efforts and recommendations to support the use of OER at scale should address strategies for states to appropriately promote and advocate for the use of OER in districts, where most adoption decisions occur.