UC Organizes National Forum Aimed At Helping Every Student Succeed

Top-level leaders from K-12 and higher education organizations, as well as business, policy, government agencies, researchers and national charitable groups will come together in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Sept. 8, to address achievement gaps among K-12 students. The forum, “Mind the Gap: New Views on Ensuring That All Students Reach Their Full Potential,” will be the first of three national policy forums co-sponsored by the Alliance for Curriculum Reform (ACR) and the Academy for Educational Development (AED). The Forum will be held at the AED conference facility located at 1825 Connecticut Ave. NW, in Washington, D.C.

The broad spectrum of national organizations and leaders will focus on ways to ensure a rich, quality, comprehensive and balanced education for all students as the best way to meet standards and accountability requirements, to close achievement gaps and to help all students transition successfully to post-secondary education and employment.

ACR is a collaborative of more than 20 national education organizations, including the University of Cincinnati College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services (CECH). UC assistant professor Kent Seidel is director of the ACR Center for Curriculum Leadership and Research, based at the University of Cincinnati. Organization of the forum and follow-up research and support is being provided by the UC-based center. AED is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to solving critical social problems in the U.S. and around the world.

Seidel says that every state and most school districts are engaged in standards-based, systemic reform initiatives, but says for many classroom teachers, standards-based reform has come to mean two things:

• An endless laundry list of expectations that students must meet
• A series of high-stakes tests that are tied to discrete subject areas and that often spell dire consequences for districts, schools, teachers and students

“Both of these conditions have driven standards-based reform efforts in directions that tend to fracture learning, diminish teaching and focus attention almost exclusively on the few subject areas represented in these tests,” Seidel says.

He adds that one way to redirect the current trend – which focuses on basic skills and test preparation instead of on quality teaching – is to demonstrate that student achievement can be enhanced and improved by connecting learning across the curriculum. “When students see how their learning relates to other subjects and concepts, their achievement improves, and their understanding deepens,” Seidel says.

The national policy forums are:

• Mind the Gap: New Views on Ensuring That All Students Reach Their Full Potential
  September 8, 2005, Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C.
• Defining and Measuring Student Achievement: A Multidisciplinary Forum
  Spring 2006, Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C.
• Bringing Research to Educational Practice—and Vice Versa
  Fall 2006, University of Cincinnati

For more information about any of the National Policy Forums, email kent.seidel@uc.edu or call Kent Seidel, ACR Executive Director, at (513)556-2006. 

Learn more about ACR at www.acr.uc.edu

Learn more about AED at www.aed.org