SMARTER Balanced Releases Draft Math Content Specifications

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Chris Barron
(360) 725-6032
chris.barron@k12.wa.us

RFP for secondary schools re: Algebra & Formative Assessment Processes

The California Academic Partnership Program (CAPP) has posted an RFP and is accepting applications for planning grants to support secondary schools in closing achievement gaps and improving students' algebra preparedness and performance. CAPP is interested in supporting the work of teachers and principals who are committed to addressing issues of equity and improving student achievement in the critical area of algebra, a gateway course for access to and success in postsecondary education. Please see CAPP's website to access the application materials and additional background information: http://www.calstate.edu/capp/program/grantapp.shtml.
I write to ask your help in sharing information and encouraging eligible applicants in your districts to review and apply.

This project, Using Formative Assessment Processes to Improve Algebra and Secondary Math Preparedness and Performance, will focus on middle and high schools and alignment of coursework and placement across grade levels to prepare students for success in Algebra the first time students take the course. CAPP provides these supports based on our experience that improving teaching practice is most likely to occur when teams of teachers work together to improve curriculum and instruction and school site leadership understands and supports this work. This grant will entail use of and provide professional development on the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project (http://mdtp.ucsd.edu/ ). The work will center on formative assessment processes and will align with the California Common Core Math Standards.

CAPP expects districts that receive planning grants to support the participation of their principals and teachers in grant activities and to commit to scaling successful elements to additional district schools in future years. Eligible applicants consist of district networks/partnerships of high schools and middle schools in deciles one through five of the California Academic Performance Index (API).

Two key dates:

· Statements of interest are due to CAPP by August 19, 2011.
· Applications are due to CAPP by September 30, 2011.

Information sessions will be held August 23, 2011 in Sacramento and August 25, 2011 in Long Beach. A webinar will be held on Monday, August 29. Details are included in the application materials and on the CAPP website.

CAPP will award planning grants in 2011-12 of $10,000 each to three district networks and in the subsequent years will award implementation grants for up to four years of approximately $75,000 each year.

Lyle Fisher

                                                                                                                   

 

Please join us

 

Saturday, March 5^th

Redwood High School Library

Larkspur, CA

1 - 3 P.M.

 

A celebration of Lyle Fisher's life

 

 

Come and share this opportunity to give our thanks and appreciation for having known this outstanding colleague and friend.

 

Light refreshments will be served.

Bill Honig Withdraws Name as State Board of Education Appointee

Bill Honig Withdraws Name as State Board of Education Appointee

 

January 10, 2011

Former state schools chief Louis "Bill" Honig, has withdrawn his nomination to the state Board of Education, Gov. Jerry Brown's office announced today.

 

Honig, one of seven appointed to the board announced by Brown last week, resigned as state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1993 after he was convicted of felony conflict-of-interest charges. The charges, which involved authorizing state funds for schools to hire his wife's nonprofit group, were later reduced to misdemeanors.

 

A release announcing Honig's decision does not specify why he decided to withdraw his name. Brown had defended his decision to appoint Honig, who had also served on the board during his first go-round as governor.

 

"I've known him, I've known his family," Brown said last week. "He has the kind of knowledge of the bureaucracy of education, as well as education policy. I think he's acquitted himself well in recent years. I think people can be confident that he has a contribution to make."

 

Brown nominated Dr. Ilene W. Straus, Beverly Hills Unified School District assistant superintendent for educational services, to fill the post. Straus, who has also worked in the Santa Monica school district, is a Democrat, according to the release.

URL: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/01/honig-withdraws-name-from-stat.html#ixzz1AhDGITWZ

Also note: The updated agenda for the California State Board of Education meeting this week is available athttp://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr11/agenda201101.asp (A number of items have been withdrawn from the January meeting agenda due to the recent SBE membership shake-up.) 

3 Opportunities for Mathematics and Science

From the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Please share with those you believe might be interested. These opportunities are not restricted to MSP (Mathematics and Science Partnership) participants. Others are eligible to apply.

 

The following opportunities may be of interest.

NASA Summer of Innovation: Consider applying for the 2011 Summer of Innovation (SoI), an intensive STEM teaching and learning program that targets middle school students and middle school teachers. For more information, click here.

SSP Fellows Program: The SSP Fellows 2011 application period is now open. This is your chance to be one of ten high school teachers competitively selected from across the country. The SSP Fellows Program provides funds and training to selected U.S. science and math teachers who serve under-resourced students, to enable interested and motivated students to perform high-quality independent scientific research. For more information, click here.

NSF Computing Education for the 21st Century: The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a new program, called Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21). The intent of CE21 is to fund collaborations that include expertise in computer science education, broadening participation in computing, and research on teaching and learning. A meeting will be held on January 31-February 1 in New Orleans, and travel funds are available for a limited number of attendees. For more information, click here.

These materials can also be found in the What's New box on the MSP home page at http://www.ed-msp.net/.

Gov. Brown's Appointments to the California State Board of Education

Earlier today, Governor Brown announced the following seven appointments to the California State Board of Education (SBE): Carl Anthony Cohn (Palm Springs), Bill Honig (Marin), Michael Kirst (Stanford), Aida Molina (Bakersfield), James Ramos (San Bernardino), Patricia Ann Rucker (Elk Grove), and Trish Boyd Williams (San Jose).

A SBE source provided the following information (unconfirmed) about the Board members whose terms either ended today or who are continuing (http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ms/mm):

* Current members Ruth Bloom [current SBE Vice President] and Johnathan Williams will be in attendance at the January 12-14, 2011 Board meeting, but their terms are up after that meeting.

 
* The terms of the following Board Members have ended as of today, and they will not be returning (or participating in the January 12-14, 2011 Board meeting):

- Ted Mitchell [current SBE President]

- David Lopez

- Alan Arkatov

- Ben Austin

- James Fang

[These five members were appointed/reappointed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year but had not been confirmed by the Senate, which wanted to give the new governor the power to establish his own education team.]

 
* The current Members who remain on the Board at this time are:

- Yvonne Chan

- Gregory Jones

- Jim Aschwanden

- Connor Cushman (Student Member)

 

* In addition to the four current Members remaining, the seven newly appointed Members will also be attending the January Board meeting. 
 

 

************************************************************************************

Bios follow below for Governor Brown's State Board of Education appointments (boldface added). All are registered Democrats.

 

Dr. Carl Anthony Cohn (Palm Springs) -- He has been a Professor and the Co-Director of the Urban Leadership Program at Claremont Graduate University since 2009. Previously, Cohn served as the Superintendent of Schools for the San Diego Unified School District from 2005 to 2007. He was a Clinical Professor with the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California from 2002 to 2005 and the Superintendent of Schools for the Long Beach Unified School District from 1992 to 2002. Cohn is a member of the Association of California School Administrators.

Louis "Bill" Honig (Marin) -- He has been President of the Consortium on Reading Excellence since 2005. Previously, Honig served as a Visiting Distinguished Professor at San Francisco State University's School of Education from 1993 to 1998. He was the Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1983 to 1993. Honig previously served on the California State Board of Education under Governor Brown from 1975 to 1983. [See http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/01/jerry-brown-defends-education.html]

 

Dr. Michael Kirst (Stanford) -- He currently serves as a Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1969.   Previously, Kirst served on the California State Board of Education under Governor Brown from 1975 to 1982. Kirst also served as the Director of Program Planning for the U.S. Office of Education and was Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment, and Poverty from 1967 to 1969. 

 

Aida Molina (Bakersfield) -- She has served as the Executive Director on Academic Improvement and Accountability for Bakersfield City School District since 2005.   Previously, Molina was a Commissioner with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing from 2004 to 2007.  Molina was a principal with Bakersfield City School District from 2001 to 2005, an elementary school principal with the Sacramento Unified School District from 1999 to 2001, an assistant principal with the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District from 1997 to 1999, and a bilingual teacher from 1992 to 1997.  Molina is a member of the Association of School Administrators and the California Association of Bilingual Educators. 

 

James Ramos (San Bernardino) -- Ramos has served as the Chairman for the San Manuel Band of Indians since 2008, having previously served as Treasurer, as a member of the Business Committee, and as Chairman of the Tribe's Gaming Commission. Ramos was re-elected in 2010 as a member of the San Bernardino Community College Board of Trustees, where he has served since 2005. He has served as a member and chairperson of the Native American Heritage Commission since 2007.

 

Patricia Ann Rucker (Elk Grove) -- Since 2008, she has worked as the Legislative Advocate for the California Teachers Association and was a consultant for the California Teachers Association on instruction and professional development from 1997 to 2008. She also served as a teacher in the Del Paso Heights School District from 1983 to 1997.

 

Trish Boyd Williams (San Jose) -- She has served as the Executive Director for EdSource since 1992. Previously, Williams served as a program consultant to the Director for the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth from 1983 to 1990, and as a Presidential Management Intern and then a Management Analyst for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1979 to 1982.

 

State Board of Education appointments require Senate confirmation.

 

.................

Source: http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=16867

News from Algebra Forum III

The 3rd statewide Algebra Forum concluded last night to much praise and optimism. Over 100 math educators gathered for the past 2 1/2 days at the Santa Clara County Office of Education to hear presentations by William McCallum on the Common Core Standards, Margaret Smith on high cognitive demand tasks, Lena Licon Khisty on increasing the instructional effectiveness with Latinas/os and many others. There were many opportunities to network with colleagues, reflect on the presentations, and discuss next steps in the regional teams. Several themes emerged from the forum. Among the most important are that the Common Core Mathematical Standards of Practice are front and center to everything we need to do and students need to be actively involved and engaged in problem solving and high cognitive demand tasks in which they are discussing and reasoning using the language of mathematicians. The Algebra Forum has developed a public website full of resources, research, and many of the presentations from the previous two forums. Visit http://www.cacompcenter.org/cs/algebrap/print/htdocs/algebra/home.htm to access these resources and for more information about the forum.

Common Core State Standards for Mathematics--Implementation Support from NCTM

Source: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)

URL: http://www.nctm.org/news/highlights.aspx?id=26084&blogid=6806

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has posted a PowerPoint file on its Web site "to inform teachers and to support them in implementation of the Common Core State Standards [(CCSS)]. Other presentations for grade bands are under development and will be made available soon." Download the file from the Web page above.

Also on this Web page is a link to the joint statement in support of the CCSS issued by NCTM, the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics (ASSM), and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics.

For more information about NCTM's initiatives related to the CCSS, read NCTM President J. Michael Shaughnessy's report located athttp://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=26483

Free Forum: Grading the Teachers: Measures, Media & Policies

Submitted by Carol Fry Bohlin

Dear Colleagues -- The following free forum will be streamed live on the Internet. The event Web site (http://gse.berkeley.edu/admin/events/gradingtheteachers.html) contains a number of links that may be of interest/use.

Carol

..................

Grading the Teachers: Measures, Media & Policies
A Free Public Forum
September 27, 1:30-4:30
UC Berkeley
Banatao Auditorium
310 Sutardja Dai Hall
A national debate has raged since mid-August when the Los Angeles Times published its evaluations of 6,000 elementary school teachers in its series, "Grading the Teachers."The paper justified its decision to make the ratings available as an "an important service, and in the belief that parents and the public have a right to the information."

While President Obama's administration has made a priority of compensating teachers, at least in part, for their performance, a big part of the controversy is the evaluation method that the LA Times used in its analysis and whether the paper did enough to make the readers aware of the limitations of the "value-added" approach it employed.

"Grading the Teachers" has been a wake-up call to those in research, journalism and education circles to grapple with the evaluation, journalistic and policy issues raised by theLA Times report. On September 27, UC Berkeley answers that call by holding the first and largest public forum to consider the methods and implications of the LA Timesreport, what promising teacher evaluations are on the horizon and, ultimately, how and whether teachers and students can benefit from them.

Mt. Lassen Math Council Conference

2010 Fall Mt. Lassen Mathematics Council Conference 

Saturday October 16, 2010 

Registration: 8:00 a.m. 

Conference activities: 8:45 a.m.- 3:30 p.m. 

Key Note Speaker: William G. McCallum 

Dr. McCallum is a University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona. Among many achievements, in 2006 he founded the Institute for Mathematics and Education at the University of Arizona. He was Director of the Institute until 2009 and now chairs its advisory board. In 2009–2010 he led the mathematics writing team that developed the NGA/CCSSO Common Core Math Standards. 

The conference includes three Sessions of varying content and grade levels, K-12. 

There will also be a Giveaway Room! (See registration form for more details) 

Where: Chico Christian School 

2801 Notre Dame Blvd. 

Chico, CA 

Registration: $30 postmarked on or before September 24, 2010 

$40 after September 24, 2010 

(Full-time Students/Student Teachers: $20) 

Registration includes: Choice of sessions, continental breakfast, catered lunch, and a one-year membership in Mt. Lassen Math Council! 

More information and registration form at: http://mountlassenmathcouncil.googlepages.com 

Contact: Chris Yakes MtLassenMathCouncil@gmail.com 

Or check us out on Facebook: Mt Lassen Mathematics Council