Recovery School District Volunteer Effort
We are pleased to announce the upcoming MegaSCASS in New Orleans on the weekend of February 3-4, 2007, at the Intercontinental Hotel. We thank Superintendent Cecil Picard and his staff for their gracious hospitality and support for this event and look forward to a great celebration of their state and New Orleans.
This message provides an overview of our preliminary plans for MegaSCASS for our members and the education community. In order to ensure that this MegaSCASS, true to the SCASS tradition, meets our members’ expectations and needs, we have surveyed our members to collect their ideas for finalizing the planning for Mega. Members, thank you very much for your overwhelming response to this survey. Your input now and in the following months is vital to the success of this event.
SCASS Background and Purpose of MegaSCASS
Begun in 1991, SCASS projects now number 14, bringing together SEA leaders in assessment, accountability, curriculum, Title I, ELL and Special Education from every state to conduct cutting-edge, practitioner-based research, to explore critical issues in education, and to develop and disseminate products and tools that are defined by our members and thereby effectively serve good practice in their states. In addition to SEA leaders, our primary members, the broad SCASS community includes the U.S. Department of Education, researchers, consultants, associate members, partners, and other important stakeholders involved in advancing the role of assessment in standards-based reform.
The MegaSCASS is a biennial gathering of all the SCASS projects with the goal of:
- sharing ideas and information,
- engaging in professional and leadership development, and
- exploring and enhancing connections across their projects.
The MegaSCASS is supplemented by SCASS meetings starting January 29 and ending February 8, 2007. We expect about 300 participants at the 2007 MegaSCASS.
An Engaging, Provocative, and Relevant Program
This year the theme of the MegaSCASS is “Learning for the 21st Century” to reflect and reiterate that all assessment is about supporting student learning. There is a unifying focus on two strategic initiatives of the chiefs. Each of these initiatives exemplifies the unique strengths of the SCASS projects in supporting the chiefs’ leadership in national education policy and implementation of best practices in their states:
- Formative Assessment (Day 1) Centering policy on good practice in the classroom, where learning requires the active engagement of teachers and students working together in understanding and setting academic goals and continuously assessing progress in achieving them
- Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Reauthorization (Day 2) Forging “a new and meaningful state-federal partnership—one in which states and districts lead” (Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin state superintendent of public instruction, October 16, 2006, CCSSO ESEA press release), with a greater focus on building state and local capacity to improve learning opportunities for all students.
Both of these initiatives seek to move to the “next stage of standards-based reform,” focusing on “real incentives for innovative state and local models along with fair and meaningful accountability for results” (CCSSO ESEA Reauthorization Statement).
Many nationally-recognized educators from our SCASS community and CCSSO’s Formative Assessment Advisory Group—including Linda Darling-Hammond, Margaret Heritage, Jim Popham, Lorrie Shepard, Rick Stiggins, Dylan Wiliam, and others—have accepted an invitation to attend MegaSCASS and share their expertise.
For Day 1 on Formative Assessment, we propose three plenary sessions and three sets of concurrent, small-group discussions (each about an hour). For the small-group discussions, we are organizing sessions around these strands:
- Learning for the 21st Century (e.g., the latest understanding on how students learn and the role of assessment in supporting this learning; visions of where we need to go in public education, such as SCASS.21 and the framework for 21st Century Skills; reconceptualizing teacher practice)
- Concrete examples of classroom-based formative assessment (e.g., Arts, ASES, CSSAP, FAST, HEAP, Science, Dylan Wiliam)
- Best practices and models of professional development (e.g., ASES, CSSAP, SEC, FAST, HEAP, Science, Rick Stiggins)
- Research (e.g., CAS, Brian Gong)
- Balanced Assessment Systems (e.g., formative use of interim assessments at the district-level [CAS], instructional use of state- and district-level data [SEC], “best practice” accountability systems [ASR], considerations for use in special education)
- Technology in support of formative assessment (e.g., Arts, HEAP, CCSAP, FAST, Science, Sara Moshman)
For Day 2 on ESEA Reauthorization, we propose to engage in the discussion of the Chief’s ESEA Policy Statement and the specific recommendations relevant to assessment, teacher practice, and accountability. The first half of the day of will be devoted to the following proposed topics:
- Discussion of ESEA Policy Statement
- Update on growth models
- Title I peer review and technical assistance
- LEP Partnership and Title III issues
- Alternate assessments and accommodations
- Two percent flexibility in assessing special education students
Also on this day, we propose to offer a special session, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, on current and former Enhanced Assessment Grant projects which will be an opportunity to listen to these project directors think out loud about lessons learned and explore various cross-cutting issues.
Again the strength of the MegaSCASS program ultimately depends on the input of our members, and we will provide more program details (expected in early December) following review of the member survey results.
Opportunities for Cross-SCASS Dialogue and Exchange of Ideas
Of course, this MegaSCASS will continue the tradition of focusing on the work of the SCASS projects in advancing the agenda of the chiefs. We envision a variety of opportunities for cross-SCASS dialogue, exploration of common challenges, and information exchange about research, innovations, policy, implementation, and practical tools and technical assistance.
These opportunities include the following:
- Individual SCASS projects holding joint-sessions during their meetings before or after Mega
- Leading multi-SCASS concurrent sessions during Mega, and/or
- Convening multi-SCASS meetings Sunday after the special session on Enhanced Assessment Grants
Exemplifying the Best of Public Education: Citizenship and Volunteer Spirit
Finally, we envision this return to New Orleans in 2007 as an important opportunity for the public education community as a whole to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the State of Louisiana and other Katrina states through volunteer service. In cooperation with Louisiana Superintendent Cecil Picard; Robin Jarvis, Superintendent of the Recovery School District (RSD); and Scott Norton, Director, Standards, Assessments, and Accountability, we hope to provide a variety of ways for volunteer service on behalf of the Recovery School Network (RSN). Our goal is to offer a flexible range of volunteer opportunities to honor our members’ extremely busy schedules and meet RSD needs (e.g., roll-up-your-sleeves on-site service, collection of needed materials, fund-raising, organizing student pen pals in your own local schools). More details to follow.
We are looking forward to making this MegaSCASS a successful one for our SCASS members. We are engaged in great work on behalf of “Learning for the 21st Century,” and are delighted that together we can make this event an important milestone in advancing this work.
Thank you for your interest in MegaSCASS. For more information on MegaSCASS or specific SCASS projects, please contact the Coordinators listed in the program staff listing or Don Long, Director of SCASS, at donl@ccsso.org.Look forward to seeing you in New Orleans.
Don Long
Director, SCASS
