CCSS Pre-Conference: Closing the Achievement Gap

From: Herczog_Michelle <Herczog_Michelle@lacoe.edu>

The Los Angeles County Office of Education
is proud to announce..

California Council for the Social Studies
Pre-Conference for K-12 History-Social Science Educators

Closing the Achievement Gap:
Content, Culture & Student Achievement

Thursday, March 5, 2009
8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

West End Educational Service Center
8265 Aspen Avenue
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730


K-12 educators are invited to attend this CCSS pre-conference event to explore the achievement gap in California schools. Examine research on the nature and extent of the gap, what is at stake, and why it is important for educators to address the issue through a broadly based History-Social Science curriculum. Explore gaps in performance of student groups as a consequence of narrowed curriculum and culturally inappropriate content and instruction. Examine how these disempower students and hamper the development of academic vocabulary and acquisition of content knowledge vital to text comprehension and academic success. Explore proven strategies to address the learning needs of diverse learners beginning in the early grades through high school. Presenters will share work by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. on the relationship between background knowledge and reading comprehension and introduce a Cultural Proficiency Continuum for H-SS to analyze content, instruction, and assessment and to change practices from what may be culturally destructive for some to those that are culturally proficient for all.

Registration Fee: $75 includes training, training materials, continental breakfast, lunch, and a copy of The Knowledge Deficit, Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and Culturally Proficient Inquiry, A Lens for Identifying and Examining Educational Gaps by R. Lindsey, S.M. Graham, R.C. Westphal, Jr., & C.L. Jew.


More information can be found in the attached file: