Standards-based Assessment:  What’s that?
Focus Group – May 6

This focus group is a continuation of our work on “Closing the Achievement Gap.”  The focus is on standards based assessment and will feature Dr. Mark O’Shea, the author of From Standards to Success. This session is especially designed for district personnel, principals, and teacher leaders.  The key questions to be addressed are “What does classroom standards-based assessment look like and how is it different from conventional assessment?” and “How does standards-based instruction look different from conventional instruction?”

All Cornerstone network schools and their district representatives are encouraged to attend. 

 

Closing the Achievement Gap:  Profoundly Multicultural Questions
Focus Group – May 29
At Freedman Elementary School, Springfield, MA

Equity, access, adapting curriculum, learning academic language---What does it all look like in practice?

Dr. Sonia Nieto will serve as knowledgeable other, sharing her depth of expertise on the subjects of multicultural education and culturally responsive pedagogy.  She will speak about how educators can make a commitment to social justice and equal access so that there is genuine movement toward closing the achievement gap.

Dr. Nieto is Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy and Culture at the School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Her writing has appears in The New Educator, The Harvard Educational Review, and Multicultural Education.  Her first book, Affirming Diversity:  The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (1992), is soon to be in its fifth edition (2008) and is used widely in multicultural education and professional development courses.  Other books include The Light in Their Eyes:  Creating Multicultural Learning Communities (1999), and What Keeps Teachers Going (2003), both from Teachers College Press.