Breakout Presentation 4
A Civil Rights Perspective on Standards-Based Accountability Regimes
(Chris Edley)
No-fault regulatory efforts to close achievement gaps are a powerful and promising complement to traditional anti-discrimination strategies. But the “consequences” feature of accountability structures often re-victimize disadvantaged students, the least politically powerful constituency. In addition, remedial interventions targeting the more powerful adults — teachers, school leaders, local educational agencies, etc. — are weakly designed, weakly enforced, or unenforceable altogether. Whether or not race and class are subtexts to these difficulties, weaknesses in the regulatory structure must be remedied in order to create a viable alternative to mere reliance on improved professionalism and more spending. There are daunting difficulties, of course. Among these are the conflict between local control and more collective aspirations for equity, the shortcomings of assessment tools, the limited state educational agency/local educational agency capacity to mount sustainable school improvement strategies, and the state’s failure to make other social welfare institutions support the mission of schools. For more information on Chris Edley, please visit the “Featured Speakers” page on this Web site.
A Framework for Understanding Poverty
(Sue Nelle DeHart)
In this session, Sue Nelle DeHart presents a basic structure, creating an awareness of the impact of poverty, as described in Ruby Payne’s book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty. In addition to providing statistics, she will discuss differentiation between generational and situational poverty, and explain some hidden rules that are the unspoken cues and habits of a group. This session will focus on providing a better understanding of poverty by highlighting three aspects of language: registers of language, discourse patterns, and story structure. Many of the key issues for schools and businesses are related to these three patterns that often are different in poverty than in middle class. For more information on Sue Nelle DeHart, please visit the “Featured Speakers” page on this Web site.
Accelerating Student Achievement by Changing the Organizational Culture
(Wendell Callahan, Dennis Danielson, Mary Glover)
The presentation spotlights the process of organizational development and change led by the San Diego County Office of Education Juvenile Court & Community Schools (JCCS) over the past seven years. Speakers will discuss how the goal of enhancing student access to high quality instruction helped JCCS drive positive and measurable organizational change. The presentation will highlight research, approaches and strategies that underscore why organizational change is critical to accelerating the achievement of all students.
California Partnership Academies
(Karen Shores)
This presentation describes how to create a school-within-the-school culture of support, community and trust based on California Partnership Academies and Smaller Learning Communities. Ms. Shores explains why a focus on college and career preparation and exploration, with support for further academic achievement, helps students prepare for success in post-secondary education and with employable skills and knowledge. She will discuss ways to narrow the achievement gap, including a study by ConnectEd, The California Center for College and Career, that explores why more seniors are earning their high school diplomas on time.
Closing the Achievement Gap for Students Who are Deaf
(Paul Ogden, Nancy Sager, David Smith)
A famous deaf man said, "Deaf children can do anything, but hear." Yet, the majority of deaf children are not succeeding academically. These experts, who are deaf themselves, will provide information about the factors that lead to academic success for children who are deaf, and will talk about instructional strategies and programming that can help deaf children acquire linguistic competence in American Sign Language and English, and compete successfully in standards-based instructional settings. This session will be moderated by Nancy Sager.
College-Going High Expectations for All
(John Anderson, Betsy Lane, Francisco Javier Ramos)
Discover answers to questions established by the Preschool through college (P-16) Council 2 ½ years ago, which focus on a “college-going culture” in Imperial County. Are students UC/CSU eligible? Are students being admitted to college? Are students enrolling in college and completing a four-year degree? This session outlines major data-driven initiatives of the Council. Learn about summer mathematics academies; Padres Promotores and Family Coaches; a marketing campaign to change families’ perception of college; Higher Education Weeks; additional SAT preparation; an annual Counselors’ Retreat; enhanced college visits; an annual reception for graduates accepted to 4-year colleges; and individual College Action Plans.
Education as a Civil Right for Historically Underachieving Students and Communities
(George McKenna III)
An analysis of the philosophies, policies, circumstances, obstacles and practices that have historically affected and currently maintain educational inequities for African American students and families in public schools is the focus of this presentation. Strategies, programs, and activities that provide opportunities for significant improvements in the effort to produce educational justice are explained. Emphasis will be placed on practical practices that can be useful to school site administrators, teachers, and classified personnel in addition to School Board Members, parents, local and state legislators, faith based representatives and the business community. This session includes a discussion of the "Black Educational Civil Rights Agenda" with a focus on four areas: policies and practices that promote student success; support for male students; increasing the graduation rate; and support for parents and families of underachieving students. Open dialogue among participants will identify specific activities in which they can engage in their own schools, districts and communities.
Ensuring Success for English Learners: What’s Language Got to Do With It?
(Susana Dutro)
What are some of the challenges facing English learners and common practices that fail to address them? What model can we propose that addresses both the continuum of English language skills and the infusion of explicit language support into grade-level content instruction? Susana Dutro will present A Focused Approach to Instruction for English Learners that lays out a blueprint to include both. It provides a framework for analyzing language tasks and identifying focus language to teach utilizing the metaphor of bricks and mortar for teaching language specific to both topic and purpose. The goal is to gain insight about ways to equip English learners with the English language tools they need to express the sophistication of their thinking. For more information on Susana Dutro, please visit the “Featured Speakers” page on this Web site.
High School Transformation: Results Achieved and Lessons Learned
(Kevin Johnson)
In this session Kevin Johnson, CEO and Founder of St. HOPE, will discuss the organization's groundbreaking work in the frontier of high school transformation. Upon returning to the community he grew up in and seeing the failure of the high school he attended, NBA all-star Kevin Johnson took over Sacramento High School in 2003 with the aim to completely change the culture, expectations and achievement levels of young people. His organization works to revitalize inner city communities through a P-12 public education model, economic development, civic leadership and the arts, all working in concert. In managing Sacramento High School, St. HOPE has transformed one of the lowest achieving high schools in the region to a school that sent more than 70% of its graduates on to a 4-year university. St HOPE's achievements and lessons learned will be shared, as well as thoughts for the future. This session will detail how radically changing the outcomes for poor and minority students at large will have a significant impact on closing the achievement gap. For more information on Kevin Johnson, please visit the “Featured Speakers” page on this Web site.
Latino Education: A Synthesis of Recurring Recommendations and Solutions in P-16 Education
(Carlos Nevarex, Timo Rico)
This presentation outlines action-oriented practices that successfully increase educational opportunities and success across educational systems (P-16) for Latinos. To meet this goal, assuming the responsibility of identifying, collecting, and analyzing national, state, and local reports on the status of Latinos in education was essential. The results of this analysis offer an opportunity to gauge the educational progress of Latinos and allow us to make concrete recommendations and solutions on improving the education for Latinos. Presenters will share this report and engage participants in a critical discussion on improving the educational status of students, with an emphasis on Latino students.
National Board Certified Teachers Work With Low-Performing Schools
(Ronarae Adams, Kay Garcia, Kathleen Magana)
National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) strengthen the teaching profession in a number of ways. Some of the benefits of being a National Board Certified Teacher include improved teaching, challenging self-assessment, professional recognition, leadership opportunities, and local and state incentives. Ins this presentation, you will hear from National Board Certified Leaders on how you can incorporate these concepts.
Partnerships to Support Best Practice Systems in Small School Districts
(Cindy Pilar, Cathy Townsley)
The Sonoma Leadership Network is a partnership model for creating a countywide professional learning community among district and school leadership teams to learn researched based systems and strategies to close the achievement gap for all students. Participants will study the findings from a Springboard Schools Best Practice research and learn tools and strategies to take back to their schools and districts. Participants will also learn a data analysis system, the Cycle of Inquiry, to support continuous improvement for teaching and learning in a professional learning community culture. Leadership teams are encouraged to attend this interactive session.
Remotivating Students
(Laura Bott, Teresa Bunner)
Literacy is essential to student success in high school and beyond, yet research indicates that roughly 50% of incoming ninth graders enter reading at the seventh grade level or lower in a typical urban, high poverty high school. This session describes components and strategies of a literacy program that helps struggling students and closes the achievement gap. These include academic/content literacy skills, buddy reading, time for self-selected reading, and high expectations. Ms. Bunner will share what research and theory look like in practice for a ninth grade English course targeting at-risk students.
Shifting a District’s Focus to Formative Assessment
(Connie Chrysler-Anderson, Michael Morris, Mary Tribbey)
What role do Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) play in education? This presentation focuses on classroom assessment strategies supported by monthly teacher collaboration. We’ve invited teachers to share their insights and describe how their knowledge of individual student learning and understanding has improved regarding when to adjust instruction to meet student needs. Learn how these repeatable strategies improve student achievement by clarifying learning intentions, involving students in their own learning, and providing immediate feedback (Stiggins, 2001) (William, 2003) (Haycock, 1998) (DuFour, 2005).
State P-16 Council Subcommittee on Climate and Culture
(Jim Dilday, Shadidi Sia-Maat)
The P-16 Council’s Subcommittee on Climate and Culture will elaborate on research that indicates a correlation between school climate/culture and academic achievement. Panelists will share preliminary findings and recommendations for closing California’s achievement gap.
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Zero Dropouts for California: Closing the Achievement Gap
(Patrick Ainsworth, John Burns, Anthony Monreal)
Two major problems that California must resolve are dropouts and the achievement gap. Learn how a “zero dropout” program—focused on prevention, intervention, recovery, and retention—is a productive way to address the gap between students who complete high school and students who do not. This session spotlights research suggesting that some educational practices may have a positive effect on reducing dropouts, yet the problem must be systematically addressed at the state, county and district level.