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Over the course of six years, a diverse group of school districts and charter management organizations in California ran a substantial experiment in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in elementary and middle grades. WestEd led an extensive evaluation of that effort, the California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative, resulting in more than a dozen evaluation reports highlighting important themes and learnings. All reports are intended to be helpful to administrators at the school and district levels, education policymakers, and people charged with designing and/or delivering science professional learning. This report on highlights from the Early Implementers Initiative is the final report of the series. It offers high-level, major lessons learned, challenges, and strategies gleaned from the evaluation series. It also offers recommendations for policymakers and administrators for implementing the Next Generation Science Standards in their own districts.

This 13th report in WestEd's evaluation of the K-8 Early Implementers Initiative for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provides an extensive response to the following question: What does NGSS science teaching look like in the classroom? The report first discusses Initiative teachers' experiences with four instructional practices that promote equitable instruction, an explicit feature of the NGSS. The report then illustrates how Early Implementer teachers enacted three additional features of NGSS instruction: (1) integrating the three dimensions of the NGSS; (2) using real-world scientific phenomena and/or engineering problems to launch and drive instructional lessons and units; and (3) having students do investigations in ways that give them the responsibility and opportunity for learning. Each vignette is followed by commentary explaining how key features of the NGSS were incorporated into the lesson, with the intention of describing the NGSS teaching in enough detail to help administrators and policymakers recognize when they are seeing NGSS-based instruction and when they aren't. The report also briefly relates specific ways that Initiative teachers have advanced in their NGSS science teaching over the years of the Initiative, and how the Initiative prepared teachers for such teaching. The report concludes with recommendations for how administrators can support teachers in implementing NGSS teaching.

The NGSS Early Implementers Initiative was created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Many educational initiatives are funded for only a couple of years. This unique initiative spanned an extraordinary six years, during which eight school districts worked toward districtwide implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which call for teachers to transform their instructional practice. This 12th report in WestEd's evaluation series for policymakers, school and district administrators, and professional learning specialists describes the Initiative's scale-up in its later years to reach all K-8 science teachers. Specifically, the report addresses the following questions: (1) In contrast to focusing in Years 1-4 on developing Teacher Leaders, what strategies did districts use in Years 5-6 to reach all other K-8 teachers of science (called "expansion teachers" in this report)?; (2) What impacts has the Initiative had on expansion teachers?; (3) Which professional learning strategies have been most and least effective for influencing the practice of expansion teachers?; and (4) What special attention was paid to providing administrators with professional learning to prompt their support of NGSS implementation?

The California Next Generation Science Standards (CA NGSS) Toolkit for Instructional Materials Evaluation (TIME) is a suite of tools and processes for evaluating and selecting instructional materials aligned with the CA NGSS. This 11th report in the NGSS Early Implementers Initiative evaluation series is intended for school and district administrators, leaders of science professional learning, and state policymakers. It provides an overview of the full TIME process, including participants' perceptions, a detailed description of the statewide TIME trainings of 2018-19, and a vignette that illustrates a portion of the TIME process.

This report describes how effective environmental literacy can be for catalyzing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) teaching, and how the California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative has provided professional learning about environmental literacy to prompt and support this synergy. The report also outlines how the California Science Framework and the Human Impacts standards of the NGSS clearly call for such synergy. This is the ninth report in a series of evaluation reports about the Initiative, which are all intended for school and district administrators, leaders of science professional learning, and state policymakers. It draws on surveys, interviews, and observations of environmental literacy-focused lessons.

This evaluation report describes a central professional learning strategy that the California NGSS Early Implementers Initiative used to help teachers effectively transition to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Initiative's approach to lesson study, called a Teaching Learning Collaborative (TLC), brings together teams of teachers who collaboratively plan, teach, critique, and then re-teach NGSS lessons. Trained facilitators ensure that participants feel professionally safe and supported to experiment with the substantial and sometimes daunting instructional shifts required by the NGSS. The especially strong emphasis on active collaboration is why the Initiative uses the term "TLC" rather than the more general, commonly used term "lesson studies." Initiative leaders chose to focus heavily on TLCs because, while teacher professional learning often takes place outside of the classroom, TLCs, like all lesson studies, provide true hands-on learning in a classroom setting where teachers can grapple with authentic instructional issues. All NGSS Early Implementer districts followed the same TLC model during Years 1 through 4 of the Initiative. In Year 5, when grant funding began to scale back and professional learning became less centralized, districts made a variety of modifications to TLCs to meet their local needs and circumstances. This report describes: (1) The original TLC model used Initiative-wide in Years 1-4, and its benefits; (2) District modifications to TLCs in Year 5; (3) Feedback from participants about what was gained and lost through those modifications; (4) Recommendations for using TLCs as NGSS professional learning. Like the entire evaluation series for the NGSS Early Implementers Initiative, this report provides useful information to school and district administrators, leaders of science professional learning, and state policymakers. The report is based on an extensive amount of data: evaluators' observation of 27 TLCs; responses from a dozen surveys; and over 100 interviews with teachers, administrators, district Project Directors, and K-12 Alliance Regional Directors.

NGSS Early Implementers is a six-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Initiative has used a train-the-trainer model to maximize spread of professional learning about the NGSS in each participating district. However, they expanded upon this model by explicitly preparing teachers to not only provide leadership in how to implement NGSS teaching, but also to become catalysts for change in their districts. This evaluation report explains how the Initiative prepared teachers for leadership in NGSS teaching, including how it created a culture of collaboration that produced change agents for science education and NGSS implementation. It also conveys how the leadership experience affected teacher leaders' actions and professional growth. Intended for school, state, and district leaders, the report addresses the following: (1) The organizational structure of teacher leadership in the Initiative; (2) How teachers were prepared for leadership in NGSS teaching; (3) How the Initiative empowered and challenged teachers to be change agents in their districts; (4) The many ways that Early Implementer teachers have provided leadership in NGSS implementation; and (5) The impact of the Initiative on teacher professional growth. Finally, recommendations are provided to administrators for encouraging and leveraging teacher leadership in support of NGSS implementation.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) advocate an integrated model of science instruction for middle schools in which the science disciplines are connected rather than separate. This model, used by other countries that are consistently successful in science, has several key benefits, including enhanced student learning and better preparation for the new California Science Test (CAST). The California Board of Education voted in 2013 to make integrated science the state's "preferred" model. The K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative was designed to support middle school science teachers and their administrators in integrating the sciences. From the start of the Initiative, all participating districts adopted the state's integrated science model. This fifth Early Implementer evaluation report examines how schools and districts in the Initiative are negotiating the transition to the integrated science model. The report draws on substantial data collected from teachers, administrators, and Initiative leaders through surveys, interviews, and classroom observations. This report also provides two detailed examples of integrated instruction through vignettes of classroom observations conducted in grades 6 and 8.