News
Read about our Quality Performance Assessments Initiative, and check out our QualityPA.org web site. CCE is a leader in providing professional development to help schools design performance tasks aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
For their February issue, eSchoolNews has just published “Performance assessment making a comeback in schools” by Dennis Pierce, which looks at two school systems that use performance assessment.The article concludes that PA is a powerful answer to the use of shallow testing in short-answer tests. It refers extensively to work done by CCE’s Quality Performance Assessment initiative.
A new study of Boston schools that are achieving good results with English Language Learners was published by CCE and the Gastón Institute of UMass Boston on November 3, 2011. The findings emphasize the roles of leadership, focus, time spent in class, collaborative cultures, and other factors. Read the findings.
CCE has published the 2011-2012 Family Guide to the Pilot, Horace Mann, and Innovation Schools, in coordination with the Boston Public Schools, available here for download.
Professional Development opportunities for Boston area teachers. The current list of such opportunities is being maintained and updated by hard-working CCE interns. Click to see the most current listing (vol. 3).
Schools benefit from working with CCE: The Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education announced in March the dispersal of $28 million in Federal funding to “struggling schools.” Of the 14 Level 4 schools CCE worked with this latest round, all 14 made it through the first round (paper review of the plans) and were granted interviews (meaning they scored high enough to be eligible for funding), and 13 of 14 were then awarded grant funds on the basis of the interviews. Combined with the two Level 4 schools CCE successfully helped get funded in the first round, there was a 100% success rate (16 of 16) in having CCE’s proposals score high enough to be granted an interview, and a 94% success rate (15 of 16) in these schools’ being awarded federal School Improvement Grant funds for three years.
Obama visits TechBoston Academy. Read the March issue of Collaborations for coverage and to see what he said about Pilot schools.
More plaudits for CCE. In Springfield MA, Brightwood Elementary School received a Level 4 (underperforming) ranking from the state. The school brought in CCE to develop a turnaround redesign plan. Senior Research Associate Pam Stazesky was called in to develop and write the plan, completed at the end of January. Said Brightwood Principal Shalimar Colon, “Thank you for the great work of CCE in creating our final plans. Pam is fabulous as well! I don’t see how we could have done it without her.”
On January 26, Principal Sheila Fisher, of the James Madison Morton Middle School in Fall River, wrote to CCE Associate Director Dania Vazquez, responding to Dania’s facilitating and writing their school turnaround plan: “Dania, Thank you for your guidance, support, logical suggestions and framing of tough decisions. Your skill in handling both people and paper problems is enviable. If this baby gets a chance to grow, our school will be such a wonderful place. But even if it doesn't, the path you have facilitated for us to see can be traveled. We will get there.”
On January 29, Principal Nancy Mullin, of Kuss Middle School in Fall River, wrote to Fall River Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown, “It was a pleasure working with Dan and Leah to write our Redesign grant. If we are successful, much of the credit goes to them for their attention to detail and thoughtful comments. If another opportunity arose, I would love to work with them again.” CCE Executive Director Dan French and CCE Consultant Leah Rugen facilitated and wrote the grant proposal for redesign of Kuss Middle School.
Read the October 2010 issue of Collaborations, our newsletter, to see four brief case studies of how CCE coaches made a difference in low-performing schools.
In a July 15 letter to education leaders in the state, Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, announcing the successful launch of autonomous, in-district Innovation Schools, states, “Several partners have provided incredibly valuable support to districts and schools, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dan French, Dania Vazquez, Meenakshi Khanna, and other staff members at the Center for Collaborative Education....” (Read Secretary Reville’s full letter.)
CCE and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation release Ready for the Future, a study of performance assessments that uses retrospective graduate interviews to better understand how such assessments prepare students for their futures. (Read more…)
LAUTR Director Anita Moultrie Turner Receives the Community Torchbearer Award..
“Top 10 reasons why Pilots work better than traditional schools” are listed in a posted message by the President of the Los Angeles Board of Education, Mónica García, quoting Jeanne Fauci, director of the Los Angeles Small Schools Center. (Read the full message...)
As part of its School Turnaround research project, nationally respected Mass Insight selected and analyzed five cases across the country of “dramatic, comprehensive turnaround of America's worst-performing schools” to look at particularly promising approaches. They identify Duggan Middle School, in Springfield MA, as one of these “turnaround” cases. They single out CCE, Duggan’s supporting partner, for its approach and accomplishments. Read how Mass Insight describes CCE’s role in Duggan’s turnaround.
