connect university of california, berkeley • graduate school of Education

ed

Test of TimeThe BEAR Necessities ofAssessment for Learning

Arts in Education

Athletes and Academics

Career Academies

wiNTER 2007

From the Dean

Dean P. David Pearson

Associate Dean forAcademic AffairsDavid Stern

Associate Dean forProfessional ProgramsDiane Mayer

Head Graduate AdviserJudith Warren Little

Assistant Deanfor Administration Frankie Temple

GSE Advisory BoardAl AdamsStacey BellMary Catherine BirgeneauMary Jane BrintonJerry CorazzaPat CrossPhilip R. DayPauline FaccianoLily Wong FillmoreNed FlandersChad Graff Miranda Heller, chairLucinda Lee KatzCarol Liu

Joyce NgLaurie OlsenAlceste PappasP. David PearsonJames E. Raby Cha SandersAnthony M. SmithCarolyn SparksWilliam TibbeyMaryEllen VogtLynn WendellVic WillitsMike WoodHeather McCracken Wu

Gra

duate

Sch

ool

of

Educa

tion

Welcome to the second issue of Connected. We hope you will enjoy learning

about our continuing efforts to prepare the next generation of educators and

scholars and about GSE alumni who are making a difference in education-

related fields.

Our cover article, “Test of Time,” spotlights the

groundbreaking work of Professor Mark Wilson and his team at the Berkeley

Evaluation and Assessment Research Center (BEAR) here. Perhaps no topic

in education generates as much controversy in this era of No Child Left

Behind. And perhaps no research touches so many people here at the School

as the principles underlying the BEAR Assessment System.

When I talked to Mark to learn more about the BEAR

Assessment System for an Education Week piece I wrote in September, it gave

me confidence that it really was possible to engineer assessment systems that

are fair to students, useful to teachers and meet the accountability demands

of policymakers. Assessment for learning might ultimately replace the high-stakes standardized tests

that dominate today’s school landscape. And it will be due, in no small measure, to efforts underway here.

As a member of our learning community, you are critical

to the work we do to prepare the next generation of scholars and educators. With continued support

from you and other alumni and friends of the Graduate School of Education, we will continue to play a

major role in efforts to improve educational opportunity and practice everywhere.

P. David Pearson Dean and Professor ppearson@berkeley.edu

Winter 2007 1

connectedFeatures14 Arts Start Preservice Initiative Takes Root

in GSE, Local Schools By Zack Rogow

16 Test of Time The BEAR Necessities of

Assessment for Learning By Steven Cohen

Departments2 School News Spotlight: The All-Simons,

All-Decade AAA Team POME Colloquium Series Spurs

Interest with Focus on NCLB Career Academy Support

Network Turns 10 with Momentum Center for Urban School Leadership

Supports Bay Area Administrators PACE to Focus on Stronger

Sacramento Presence ATDP Jeopardy! UC Links Teachers, Families in

New Orleans BAWP Finds Its Writer’s Voice Cal Prep Makes Progress in

Second Year Committee for Professional

Education Programs Retreat In Brief

9 Faculty Spotlight: Michael Ranney In Memoriam: Harry Stehr Honors Publications

Appointments Grants New Faces: Xiaoxia Newton

12 Students Spotlight: Gabriela Segade In Memoriam: Rodrigo Rodriguez Jr. Honors

24 Alumni Spotlight: Derek Briggs In Memoriam: denise brown Class Notes

28 Friends Spotlight: GSE Faculty Participate

in Named Funds Initiative Haste Street Center Opens Spring Scholarship Tea LeapFrog Founder Funds GSE’s

Work in Urban Education Donors

Cover: Berkwood-Hedge School teacher Vera Balarin watches her fourth-grade students dig into the magnetism and electricity unit of the FOSS (Full Option Science System) curriculum. FOSS’s assessment design is based on the BEAR Assessment System at the Graduate School of Education.Photo: Peg Skorpinski

Back cover: GSE Developmental Teacher Education students enjoy a guitar class as part of the Arts Education Initiative.Photo: Dave Schmitz

16

14

4

Editor/Writer: Steven Cohen

Graphic Design: Kat Jones

Copy Editors:Joyce Burks, Paula Dragosh

Editorial Board:Steven Cohen, Christine Cziko, Shantina Jackson, Andy Maul, Heather McCracken Wu, David Pearson, Della Peretti, Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, Meghan Shaughnessy, Janine Sheldon

Contributing Photographers:Steven Cohen, Margaretta Mitchell, Peg Skorpinski, David Schmitz, Bijan Yashar

Printer: UC Printing ServicePrinted on recyled content paper

ConnectedUniversity of California Graduate School of Education3627 Tolman Hall #1670 Berkeley, CA 94720-1670

Phone: 510/643-9784E-mail: ext_rel@berkeley.eduFax: 510/643-2006Web: gse.berkeley.edu

To subscribe to gsE-news and receive Connected and the gsE-bulletin by e-mail, please visit gse.berkeley.edu/admin/communications/subscribe.html

©2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

connectedwinter 2007 • volume 2Connected is published annually by the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education for alumni and friends.

2 connected

The All-Simons, All-Decade AAA TeamSpotlight

GSE professor emeritus Herb Simons thinks collegiate

athletes are special people with strong character traits.

That’s why more than 10 years ago, Simons, with the help

of Tony Smith and Derek Van Rheenen (see All-Simons

Team), developed Athletes and Academic Achievement

(AAA), a master’s program for athletes and former ath-

letes to apply their considerable athletic knowledge and

academic skills to the scholarly study of the role of sport

in society and the conflict between academics and

athletics.

Simons wanted student athletes who had dealt with

and overcome this conflict to bring their own experiences

to the academic study of school and sports and the role of

race, ethnicity, class and gender in athletics.

The master’s program allows students to pursue

sports- and education-related careers as professional

athletes, coaches, teachers, athletic and educational

administrators and advisers to student athletes. AAA

students come from a wide variety of schools, backgrounds

and sports. Many have gone on to successful careers in

education and sports.

Hall of Fame football coach John Madden has awarded

tough, smart professional players a vaunted place on his

All-Madden teams for nearly 20 years.

Here comes a new yardstick: the All-Simons,

All-Decade Team playing four key career positions:

Herb Simons, left, with the AAA class of 2006. Members of the

All-Simons, All-Decade team are Bolota Asmeron, front row, first

left; Kristen Lewis, front row, third from left (with cap); and Sarah

Bergman, top row, fourth from left.

Name College/Sport Career

Genevieve Debose Cal/Track Founding teacher, Lighthouse Community Charter School, Oakland David Glascow Cal/Track Education aide to Senator Dianne Feinstein Courtney Johnson Cal/Basketball Education Director, CYO Tony Smith Cal/Football Deputy Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District

Lauralee Summer Harvard/Wrestling English teacher, Charlestown High, Boston, MA Kevin Waesco Swarthmore/Football Math teacher; football coach, Tower; Hill School, DE Laura Goldhammer Columbia/Volleyball Athletic Academic Adviser, UC Davis Keiko Price UCLA/Swimming Academic Support for Athletes, Stanford University Chaniqua Ross UCLA/Track Academic Adviser, Sociology Dept., UC Berkeley Bruce Smith Brown/Football Academic Adviser for African American students, University of Arizona Derek Van Rheenen Cal/Soccer Director, Athletic Study Center; Co-Director, AAA; GSE lecturer

Sarah Bergman Drew/Lacrosse Assistant lacrosse coach, Earlham College Corey Bosworth Cal/Crew Novice crew coach, Harvard University Kristen Lewis Cal/Swimming Assistant swim coach, UC Berkeley Louella Lovely Cal Poly, San Luis Assistant volleyball coach, University of Notre Dame Obispo/Volleyball Mark Orr Cal/Football Athletic Director, St. Mary’s College, Moraga

Bolota Asmeron Cal/Track Middle distance runner training for U.S. Olympic team Scott Fujita Cal/Football Linebacker, New Orleans Saints Nick Harris Cal/Football Punter, Detroit Lions

Elementary andSecondaryEducation

AcademicSupportServices

intercollegiate

CollegeCoaches/Athletic

Administrators

AthletesCurrently

Competing

schoolnews

Winter 2007 3

Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation

continued its successful Colloquium Series on Equity

and School Reform, which began in fall 2006, with

seven engaging public events in 2007.

The most contentious and best-attended session

in the series, organized by POME professors Dan

Perlstein, Bruce Fuller and Mark Wilson and aided by

student area representatives Laurie Mireles and Leah

Walker, was the appearance of Sandy Kress, a former

education adviser to President Bush and a lead figure

in the creation of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Kress defended the legislation in front of a jam-

packed audience in Tolman Hall room 2515 on March 6.

The Meet the Press–style panel discussion also included

Boalt Hall School of Law professor Goodwin Liu,

National Public Radio/KQED FM reporter Kathryn

Baron and Mireles. A lively question-and-answer

session followed opening remarks, with most of the

audience and panel members expressing frustration

with the accountability features of the legislation,

currently being considered for reauthorization in

Congress.

The final event in the series, on November 20, also

used a panel discussion format that focused on No

Child Left Behind. Titled “The Debate Over No Child

Left Behind: Advancing Equity, Will It Survive?” it fea-

tured a discussion with Norman Yee, vice president,

San Francisco School Board; Russlynn Ali, vice presi-

dent, The Education Trust and Executive Director,

The Education Trust-West, and GSE students Funie

Hsu and Angeline Spain.

Another well-attended talk was given by UCLA’s

Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor in Educational

Equity and director of the University of California’s

All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity

and Institute for Democracy, Education & Access.

Oakes discussed the low college participation rates of

California’s African American, Latino and American

Indian students, and the K–12 school conditions that

help explain them. With the audience, she discussed

a variety of policy recommendations for removing the

educational roadblocks that unfairly impede these

students.

Mark Rashid, chair of UC Board of Admissions

and Relations with Schools (BOARS) and a professor

of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis,

and GSE professor David Stern, who is UC Berkeley’s

representative on the committee, gave the final

presentation of the term. Stern offered an overview

of UC systemwide eligibility and campus selection

procedures as well as their shortcomings. Rashid

highlighted the admissions proposal that was unani-

mously approved by BOARS.

This proposal, which will require passage by UC’s

Board of Regents to take effect, eliminates the use of

the statewide eligibility index to guarantee admission,

and instead offers a guarantee to review the entire

application of any student above a basic threshold

(e.g., meeting “a-g” requirements), and encourages

such students to apply. The proposal continues

guaranteed admission only for Eligibility in the Local

Context students (the top 4 percent of students in

each participating California high school class).

Lisa Chavez, the academic coordinator for UC

Berkeley’s Center for Latino Policy Research, rounded

out the Spring Semester program with a talk titled

“Preparing for Transfer: Latinos in California

Community Colleges.”

POME Colloquium Series Spurs Interest with Focus on NCLB

Sandy Kress Goodwin Liu Kathryn Baron Jeannie Oakes

4 connected

The Career Academy Support Network (CASN)

at the Graduate School of Education is not slowing

down in its 10th year of preparing high school

students for college and careers.

CASN works primarily in high schools with

large proportions of students who are at risk of not

completing a diploma. It has particular expertise in

developing small learning communities and career

academies, which bring together cross-curricular

teams of teachers to work with groups of students

over time, show students the relevance of what they

are learning and point them in the direction of college

and careers.

“Helping students meet requirements for higher

education can be a challenge for teachers and

counselors,” says GSE professor David Stern, CASN’s

principal investigator. “Our team has learned a lot

working closely with high schools, and we’re eager

to share promising practices.”

At any given time, CASN provides technical sup-

port or evaluates grants to establish Small Learning

Communities/Career Academies in approximately

40 high schools in several different states, but

mostly in California, according to CASN coordinator

Charles Dayton, who helped start the first Career

Academies in California.

CASN’s biggest grant projects currently are in

the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

Funded by the James Irvine Foundation, this acad-

emies initiative develops and enhances 12 different

Partnership Academies at El Cerrito, J. F. Kennedy,

Richmond, Pinole Valley, De Anza and Hercules

high schools.

In May, the Irvine Foundation awarded CASN a

special $500,000 grant to increase support for college

preparation and college going among California

students from populations that are historically

underrepresented in higher education. The grant

will fund the development of a toolkit called “Col-

lege Gear” with materials designed to guide high

schools to better prepare students for college

— including an electronic transcript analysis

system to help gauge whether students are meeting

University of California’s “a-g” benchmark require-

ments. The transcript system is being piloted in

six high schools in the Bay Area, Central Valley and

Inland Empire. CASN is developing a series of eight

regional symposiums around California beginning

next spring in order to distribute the toolkit to high

school representatives.

Momentum for career-technical education

(CTE) appears to be building on the state level,

according to Stern and W. Norton Grubb, another

GSE professor. In an April Policy Brief, “Making the

Most of Career-Technical Education: Options for

California,” for Policy Analysis for California

Education (PACE), they wrote:

“CTE is once again being seriously considered as

an option for California high schools, after a decade

in which academic programs and college prepa-

ration have been the focus. Career academies in

California have expanded, and some districts (like

Oakland and San Jose) have put academies in many

of their high schools. Individual high schools that

have restructured into different career-oriented

majors or pathways have increased.

“Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed

a revitalization of CTE, calling for additional state

funding to increase CTE opportunities, to integrate

core academics with occupational courses to ‘give

students pathways to postsecondary education

and careers,’ to create career-themed high schools,

and to build stronger partnerships with employers.

The positive responses to the Governor’s proposals

reflect a growing recognition that the conventional

academic or college prep track is not the only path-

way, and for many students not the best pathway,

through high school.”

CASN’s 10th anniversary may yet turn golden for

many at-risk California students.

For more information, visit the Career Academy

Support Network at casn.berkeley.edu.

Career Academy Support NetworkTurns 10 with Momentum

Kennedy High School Career Academy students participated in the San Pablo Youth Engagement

Project this summer.

schoolnews

Winter 2007 5

The Center for Urban School Leadership (CUSL),

comprising the Kenneth E. Behring Principal Lead-

ership Institute (PLI) and a suite of interrelated

programs designed to support a leadership pathway

in urban public schools, is now a leading provider of

professional development for the San Francisco and

Oakland Unified School Districts.

Results of the CUSL’s district-customized pro-

fessional development programs are promising,

according to a just-completed first-year evaluation.

In an effort to support and retain K-12 adminis-

trators, the program ensures that principals and

assistant principals share similar approaches to the

complex work of school change.

As one elementary school principal participant

explained: “Keeping my eyes on the goal of school

change in the midst of all the minutia has helped.”

Lynda Tredway, coordinator of the new profes-

sional development project, credits GSE professor

Judith Warren Little’s ongoing work on professional

learning communities as fundamental to the project.

The project is based on opening up the culture of

privacy in schools and classrooms and sharing lead-

ership practices across the district.

“Our model focuses on leading for learning

by supporting educators in their cultivation of

inquiry and daily reflection as habits of mind,”

says Tredway.

CUSL’s professional development shares

similarities with Project IMPACT (Inquiry Making

Progress Across Communities of Teachers), the

innovative GSE teacher professional development

program, by focusing on action research as a catalyst

to leadership. Participating administrators identify

specific school site issues and, in small work groups,

look closely at how their leadership actions impact

teacher practice and student learning.

Inquiry facilitators are a key support to the

project and school leaders. They oversee groups of

five to six individuals (as well as coach new district

principals and assistant principals), guide group

discussions, and provide assistance with group

members’ action research projects.

Meanwhile, CUSL’s flagship program, the Behring

PLI, continues to go strong in its eighth year. Of 271

PLI graduates to date, 209 are serving in principal,

assistant principal or district-level positions.

“The speed with which our graduates are placed

in leadership roles is remarkable,” says Tredway,

“and still only one PLI grad has ever left the field of

education.

“Thanks to Ken Behring’s extraordinary scholar-

ship support, 50 percent of our graduates are persons

of color, reflecting the demographics of California

and serving as exemplars of high educational attain-

ment in our most underserved communities.”

In September, Ron Machado, a Principal Leadership

Institute graduate and principal of San Francisco’s

Miraloma Elementary School, promised to sport a pink

mohawk if his students raised the school’s Academic

Performance Index (API) by 55 points, a large one-

year gain on the 1,000-point scale. The students came

through with a 67-point gain on the API. So, with 300

smiling students chanting, “Mohawk! Mohawk! Mo-

hawk!” off went the old, and up went the new hairdo.

Center for Urban School LeadershipSupports Bay Area Administrators

Hawking Hair to Raise Test Scores

6 connected

When Policy Analysis for California Education

(PACE) turns 25 in 2008, it plans to mark the

milestone with a major shift in focus — from

conducting in-house policy research toward build-

ing a broader research network and establishing a

stronger presence for researchers in Sacramento.

The independent research center, based at UC

Berkeley and Stanford, is uniquely positioned to

bring the scholarly research generated at the state’s

major research institutions — the University of

Southern California, UC Davis, UCLA and others —

to bear on the policy challenges facing California’s

education system.

“There’s a wide gap between academics and pol-

icy audiences,” says executive director David Plank,

who joined PACE last January from Michigan State

University’s Education Policy Center. “Researchers

often complain that their findings aren’t taken into

account by policymakers while at the same time

policymakers are searching for research to guide

their policy decisions. We’re translating it into

information that’s useful and accessible to them.”

Following up on March’s Getting Down to Facts

(GDTF) studies, which called for an overhaul of the

PACE to Focus on Stronger Sacramento Presence state’s public school finance and governance systems,

PACE is focusing on two sets of issues: the need for

useful education data collection and the need for

improved personnel policies and capacity building at

all levels of California’s education system.

As Getting Down to Facts showed, California

lags far behind many other states in the quantity,

quality and timeliness of education data. The lack

of reliable data represents a serious obstacle to com-

prehensive educational reform, preventing the state

from tracking the performance of students, teachers

and schools, and from evaluating interventions.

The studies also found that the failure to target

human resources efficiently and equitably creates

ills such as very limited supervision of teachers,

too-large class size and the virtual disappearance of

librarians, counselors, nurses and other vital non-

teaching personnel in some areas of the state.

The organization also convenes monthly

seminars in Sacramento, bringing together leading

scholars, practitioners and policymakers to discuss

current educational issues. For more information

on any of PACE’s activities or policy briefs, please

visit the PACE website at pace.berkeley.edu.

A Jeopardy! wannabe has about as

much chance to become a contestant

on “America’s Favorite Quiz Show”

as to win the California Lottery. But

after an exasperating three-year wait, Shadrick (Shad) Small,

an assistant specialist with the Academic Talent Development

Program (ATDP), finally got his shot on July 30. Small, 21, made

the most of the opportunity, becoming a three-time Jeopardy

champion and finishing second in the fourth round, pocketing

$61,101 for his appearances. Amazingly, Carrie Brown, his ATDP

office mate, appeared as a Jeopardy! contestant in 1992. Small

figures that it must be some kind of statistical anomaly that

two Jeopardy contestants could hail from the same crowded of-

fice on the northwest corner of Tolman Hall. “That’s 40 percent

of ATDP’s regular cast,” Small surmised, “50 percent if some-

one’s on their lunch break!”

ATDP Jeopardy!

UC Links, in collaboration with the Virtue Foundation, conducted two professional development conferences in Louisiana on digital teaching and learning for teachers from districts affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as part of its ongoing effort to support families and youth displaced by the disasters. Teachers attending the conferences received laptops from the Foundation. Pictured above, University-Community Links executive director Charles Underwood helped train the teachers in using the technology effectively with their students.

UC Links Teachers, Families in New Orleans

schoolnews

Host Alex Trebek with Small

Charles Underwood

Winter 2007 7

This summer, the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP)

initiated a new partnership with ForWords Founda-

tion and the Canal Alliance to create a new summer

program, “The Writer’s Voice,” for middle and high

school students in the largely Latino immigrant

community of San Rafael’s Canal Area.

In this five-week program, two Spanish bilingual

BAWP teacher consultants, Pilar Mejía and Diana

Encarnacíon, and ESL teacher Myron Berkman

served as mentors and co-teachers for Canal Alliance

teachers and interns.

The program helped the students develop

English and literacy skills. With laptops and digital

cameras purchased by ForWords and the dedication

of the staff and the students, three publications

were completed: “Diamantes del Sol,” a collection of

student poetry, “Immigration Stories,” a collection

of students’ personal stories and “Interviews and

Advice,” interviews of high school students about

their educational experiences. The inclusion of color

photographs gave the publications a remarkable

BAwP Finds its writer’s Voiceprofessional quality.

“The students not

only learned the joy of

writing and developed

significant computer

and media skills, but

they also had a vivid and tangible product of their

hard work,” says BAWP director Carol Tateishi.

The program closed with a publication celebra-

tion where students were presented with bound

copies of their writing, a moment shared with Canal

Alliance and BAWP staff, ForWords and the stu-

dents’ families.

“This summer’s project was an amazing col-

laboration that brought the strengths of teach-

ing writing to students in a culturally competent

manner,” says Juan Carlos Arauz, Canal Alliance’s

Youth Education and Development Director. “The

students were engaged in learning and a deep level

of critical analysis of their lives and community they

live in.”

Students at California College Preparatory Academy

(CAL Prep), the secondary school serving low-income

urban youth co-founded by UC Berkeley and Aspire

Public Schools, showed impressive gains on the Cali-

fornia Standards Tests during the last school year.

More than 34 percent of CAL Prep students

scored proficient or advanced in English language

arts (up about 10 percent from 2006), and math

proficiency almost doubled over the same period, to

44.5 percent. The school’s seventh graders demon-

strated the most progress, with 43 percent reaching

proficient or advanced levels in English Language

Arts and 56 percent in mathematics.

Although the percentage of English Language

Learners doubled to a third of all CAL Prep students

in 2007, students had an 11 percent jump in profi-

cient or advanced levels over 2006 in English Lan-

guage Arts. Overall, CAL Prep accelerated the learn-

ing of at least two-thirds of its students who scored

far below basic in either English Language Arts or

mathematics in 2006.

Based on these results, CAL Prep’s Academic Per-

formance Index (API) score rose by 77 points, to 725.

“We’re very proud that many of our students are

doubling and almost tripling their mastery of the

core curriculum,” says Steve Liles, who took over

as principal from Michael Prada (who now serves

as Director of Student Services at Aspire) this fall.

“Our collaboration with UC Berkeley is helping us

increase the quality of our instructional program so

that in the future all of our students can show this

kind of success.”

CAL Prep was also buoyed by a 100 percent reten-

tion rate for returning teachers this fall. In addition,

the school’s first ninth graders (a grade is added

every year) are taking art history and English 201

from nearby Berkeley City (formerly Vista) College

instructors. A popular college-level conversational

Spanish course is again being offered after school.

“We’re on the right path with dedicated, consistent

teachers, Cal undergrad tutors and UC Berkeley faculty

helping design the school,” says Dean David Pearson.

CAL Prep Makes Progress in Second Year

Immigration Stories

8 connected

Teams of mathematics and English faculty from 10 community colleges from

throughout California and out of state attended the third annual Dale Tillery Institute, held August 6–8 at UC Berkeley’s Faculty Club. Led by professor W. Norton

Grubb and Foothill College President Emerita Bernadine Chuck Fong, the teams

worked with national experts in basic skills education to craft strategic plans to

be implemented during the upcoming academic year. Presenters included Joyce

Romano from Florida’s Valencia Community College; Barbara Illowski, De Anza

College; and Dona Boatright, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

Institute. The Institute is named for the late GSE Dean who wrote the community

colleges section of the California Master Plan for Education.

UC Berkeley’s new Berkeley Diversity Research Initiative (BDRI) is moving

ahead at the Graduate School of Education. The Educational Policy Collaboration

Research Approach cluster, led by Dean and professor David Pearson and professor

Norton Grubb is in the process of considering candidates for two tenure-track

positions at the assistant or associate professor levels in any of the following

three areas: K-12 education policy and equity; education and community/student

social processes; or education and immigration. The other two campus BDRI

clusters are Diversity and Democracy and Diversity and Health Disparities. In

July, Gibor Basri, a UC Berkeley astrophysics professor, was selected as the campus’s

new vice chancellor for equity and inclusion.

A total of 120 happy students received degrees at the Graduate School of Education’s commencement May 12 in Zellerbach Hall. Keynote speaker Patricia

Gándara, a UCLA professor of education, told the new graduates that their good

intentions and dogged persistence would be rewarded. She concluded her

remarks by urging the graduates to “change the world one student at a time.”

Kathryn Young, a graduate in Policy Organization, Measurement and Evaluation,

was the doctoral program speaker; and MACSME student Abbey Novia was the

master’s/credential program speaker.

The Spencer Fellowship Institutional Research Training awards are in their

final year. The $10,000, one-time fellowship grant program was instituted nine

years ago (the program is at the end of its second five year phase) in order for

Spencer Fellows to design and conduct independent research projects during

their fellowship year, as well as receive support and mentoring from faculty and

peers in a series of special activities. More than 100 former Spencer Fellows have

gone on to take faculty positions in a wide range of universities, colleges and

research organizations.

in Brief

The Committee for Professional

Education Programs (CPEP) held a

very successful retreat September 23-

25 at Westerbeke Ranch Conference

Center in Sonoma. Faculty, coor-

dinators, instructors, supervisors

and students from five professional

programs — the Principal Leader-

ship Institute (PLI), Developmental

Teacher Education, Multicultural

Urban Secondary English, Masters

and Credential in Science and Math-

ematics Education and Cal Teach —

convened to renew and further their

commitment to preparing teachers

and principals to work in settings

committed to diversity and equity,

as well as to examine and challenge

themselves on issues of diversity and

equity. Victor Cary and Lisa Lasky

from the Bay Area Coalition for Equi-

table Schools facilitated the retreat.

From left, Adela Arriaga, Bay Area Writing Project co-director and MUSE supervisor; MACSME supervisor Shary Rosenbaum; and MACSME student Rosemary Jamal converse at the CPEP retreat.

Marissa Moss, author-illustrator of the wildly popular Amelia books, headlines the 14th Celebration of Children’s Literature on Saturday, April 12, 2008, from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. The free public event enjoyed one of its most successful years ever in 2007.

schoolnews

CPEP Moves Forward at Retreat

Winter 2007 9

Michael RanneyThe Numbers Beat

Professor Michael Ranney finds

statistics empowering. He has even

compiled a Top 40 list of numbers

that every person should know…

but many don’t.

Last fall, he shared the list with

55 journalism students during an

intensive, one-week numeracy

module, “Numbers, News, and

Evidence.” Some news-reporting

students initially thought that

California had a billion or more

people (instead of about 37 million).

“Reporters are notoriously num-

bers-shy,” says UC Berkeley journalism

professor and associate dean Cynthia

Gorney. “We tend to glaze over when

confronted with statistical informa-

tion or a story requiring calculation

— or, far worse, to do the math

wrong.” Gorney says that it’s especially

striking in education beats, where

“we’re constantly being confronted

with test scores, percentages, increases/

decreases and so on.”

Ranney’s research shows that some

of the numbers on his Top 40 list can

change people’s preferences on highly

charged issues — from higher educa-

tion to the death penalty. Three of

his Top 40 for the class include: the

annual number of abortions per 1,000

live births in the U.S./315, the annual

number of legal immigrants per 1,000

U.S. residents/4, and the annual num-

ber of legal immigrants per 1,000 U.S.

residents over the past 150 years/5.

“People care a lot about abortion,

but when they see that number [315

per 1,000], they care even more about

abortion,” says Ranney. “On the other

hand, people care a lot about immigra-

tion, but they care less about immigra-

tion after learning the current rate.

“Numbers can change what you

know and want — and even how you

feel about an issue.”

Ranney, a soft-spoken, energetic

teacher, wants current and future

journalists to think critically about

what they’re reporting and to com-

municate it coherently because “news

stories, when they even report quan-

tities, often provide disconnected num-

bers, or even too many numbers.” For

example, he favors conveying some per

capita concepts with imagery involv-

ing sold-out football stadiums.

During the numbers-training class,

he asked his journalism students what

they might have asked Karl Rove after

his 2006 speech in which he declared

that President Bush’s “tax cuts have

helped make the U.S. economy the

strongest in the world.”

“A couple of things they could ask

are, ‘Who had the strongest economy

before the tax cuts?’ and ‘When did the

U.S. overtake them?’ ”

Ranney’s team received grants

from the William and Flora Hewlett

Foundation and others, partly to

assess the class’s gains. The results

of the team’s controlled experiment

were encouraging: Students showed

significantly improved numeracy

skills — such as skills in estimation

and various forms of mathematical

thinking. And 80 percent or more of

the students thought the class should

be offered again.

Ranney must consider those

numbers empowering.

“Numbers can change what you know and want — and even how you feel about an issue.”

Stehr served as Supervisor of Teacher Education in the School

of Education from 1960 to 1992, following a decade of teaching at

San Leandro High School. In training student teachers at GSE,

Stehr introduced innovative practices for teaching mathemat-

ics and social science. He was also a teacher and later principal

of GSE’s Demonstration Secondary Summer School for 20 years.

In 1989, Stehr was inducted into Phi Delta Kappa and served as its president and

in various other capacities. The Alameda–Contra Costa Mathematics Educators

Association recognized his teaching acumen by granting Stehr their Distinguished

Mathematics Educator Award in 1991.

In honor of his memory, the School of Education has set up a Harry Stehr Memorial

Fellowship Fund to support Master’s and Credential in Science and Mathematics

Education (MACSME) students.

in Memoriam… Harry Stehr, 1928–2007

Spotlight

faculty

10 connected

HONORS

Assistant Professor Dor Abrahamson made presentations

at the inaugural conferences of the International Mind,

Brain, and Education Society in Fort Worth, Texas, and the

Spencer Conference: Developmental Science Goes to School

in Chicago. Proceedings of the Spencer conference will

become an edited book.

Emeritus Professor Paul Ammon gave the keynote address

at the Association for Constructivist Teaching’s annual

conference at UC Berkeley in October.

Professor Norton Grubb gave the keynote address at

the Bad Ischler Dialogue of the Social Partners of Austria

on Lifelong Learning in October. The talk was based on a

report he wrote for the Organization for Economics and

Cultural Development.

Professor Glynda Hull was honored with the first annual

Chancellor’s Public Service Award for her contribution to

community service. The professor of Language and Literacy,

Society and Culture received the Individual Faculty Civic

Engagement Award.

Claire Kramsch, professor of German and Education,

received the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award

from the American Association for Applied Linguistics.

Professor Marcia Linn was elected to membership in the

National Academy of Education as well as president-elect of

the International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Professor Judith Warren Little gave the keynote

address at“Redesigning Pedagogy: Culture, Knowledge

and Understanding” international conference in May in

Singapore. The address, titled “Making the Most of Experi-

ence — Teachers’ Representations of Practice as a Resource

for Professional Learning and Instructional Decision

Making,” appears as a chapter in “Yearbook of the National

Society for the Study of Education.”

Associate Professor Jabari Mahiri was selected as one of

four recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Advancing

Institutional Excellence.

PUBLICATIONS(published in 2007 unless otherwise indicated)

LLSC faculty Patricia Baquedano-López, Glynda Hull, Jabari Mahiri, Claire Kramsch, GSE doctoral student

Shlomy Kattan and alumni Eva Lam, Judith Green, Steve

Thorne and Rick Kern contributed to the second edition of

the Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2008).

Professor Bruce Fuller, Standardized Childhood: The Political and

Cultural Struggle Over Early Education.

Professor Norton Grubb’s book, The Education Gospel: The

Economic Power of Schools (2004) came out in paperback. With

UCLA professor Jeannie Oakes, Grubb co-authored a paper,

“Restoring Value to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric

and Practice of Higher Standards,” for the education policy

centers at the University of Colorado and Arizona State

University.

Visiting Associate Professor Zeus Leonardo served as editor

and authored an article for a special edition of the journal

Race, Ethnicity and Education.

Assistant Adjunct Professor Erin Murphy-Graham, “How

Secondary Education Can Be Used to Promote Participation

in Public Life: Evidence From the Sistema de Aprendizaje

Tutorial Program in Honduras;” “Opening the Black Box:

Women’s Empowerment and Innovative Secondary Educa-

tion in Honduras.”

Professor Alan Schoenfeld, Assessing Mathematical Proficiency;

“Problem Solving Around the World: Summing Up the State

of the Art.”

Professor Sophia Rabe-Hesketh and Anders Skrondal,

Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling Using Stata.

Professor Emeritus Robert Ruddell is revising the two

college texts he authored, Teaching Children to Read and Write:

Becoming an Effective Literacy Teacher and Theoretical Models and

Processes of Reading.

Associate Professor Frank C. Worrell, “Gifted Education:

Traditional and Emerging Approaches;” “Identifying and

Including Low-Income Learners in Programs for the Gifted

and Talented: Multiple Complexities;” with Zena Mello,

From left, Dor Abrahamson, Norton Grubb, Glynda Hull,

Jabari Mahiri

faculty

Winter 2007 11

“The Reliability and Validity of Zimbardo Time Perspective

Inventory (ZPTI) Scores in Academically Talented Adoles-

cents;” with Nina Gabelko and David Roth, “Elementary

Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) Scores in Academically

Talented Students.”

APPOINTMENTS

Professor Sophia Rabe-Hesketh was named to the Board

of Trustees of the Psychometric Society.

Dean and Professor P. David Pearson was elected chair of

the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Professor Geoffrey Saxe was appointed to a three-year

term as president of the Jean Piaget Society.

Professor Elliot Turiel was named the Jerome Hutto Chair

for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2007.

Associate Professor Frank C. Worrell was elected to mem-

bership in the Society for the Study of School Psychology.

GRANTS

Associate Professor Patricia Baquedano-López received a

UC MEXUS grant for her project “Emerging Maya-American

Identities: The Politics of Education and Civic Engagement

in Yucatán and the Bay Area of Northern California.”

Professor Geoffey Saxe was awarded a $1.5 million,

four-year grant from the Institute of Education Sciences

on Teaching Fractions and Integers: The Development of

Research-Based Instructional Practice. Associate Adjunct

Professor Maryl Gearhart is senior researcher; Professor

Sophia Rabe-Hesketh is a consultant; and several current

GSE graduate students are affiliated with the project.

New Faces

Xiaoxia Newton, an

assistant professor of

Policy, Organization,

Measurement and

Evaluation, arrived

at UC Berkeley just

six days before classes started this fall. Still, she’s

already feeling at home.

“I had a very good feeling about the faculty,

students and staff when I visited in August,” says

Newton, “and that hasn’t changed with my experi-

ences so far.”

Newton says that her comfort level is due in large

measure to the broad academic methodological

training that she received at UCLA as well as her

experience directing a longitudinal District Math

Plan evaluation project for the Program Evaluation

and Research Branch of the Los Angeles Unified

School District (LAUSD).

“My academic training from UCLA has enabled

me to demonstrate creativity while doing complex

program evaluation projects in a very challenging

environment [LAUSD],” says Newton. “I look for-

ward to sharing this experience with GSE students.”

Born and raised in mainland China, Newton

received her B.A. (English) and her M.A. (Applied

Linguistics) degrees from Tsinghua University,

Beijing, China, before attending UCLA, where she

earned a Ph.D. in Social Research Methodology. Prior

to coming to UC Berkeley, she was a postdoctoral

scholar at Stanford’s School of Education, mainly

studying graduates of the Stanford Teacher Educa-

tion Program as part of a research project there.

For more on Newton, visit gse.berkeley.edu/

faculty/XNewton/XNewton.html.

From left, Elliot Turiel, Frank C. Worrell, Patricia Baquedano-López

From left, Claire Kramsch, Marcia Linn, Judith Warren Little

12 connected

students

Spotlight Gabriela Segade Finding Her Way

UC Berkeley was not in Gabriela Segade’s life plans

20 years ago — academically, financially or geographically.

Today, one would be hard pressed to find a more

enthusiastic, directed doctoral student anywhere on

this sprawling campus.

Raised in a poverty-stricken family in Uruguay,

Segade, who speaks Spanish and French, learned some

English as an adolescent in Argentina, but didn’t

become completely comfortable with it until she

entered community college in Hawaii in her early 20s.

At that point, a Ph.D. was not in the cards. “I was

thinking about immediate needs,” says Segade. “I just

wanted to get a degree and get a job to pay the bills.”

Segade went on to earn a B.A. in Sociology and a

master’s in English as a Second Language from the

University of Hawaii, at Manoa. She became an ESL

teacher and program administrator at the University

of Hawaii, English Language Program for five years. In

2002, she hopped to the mainland where she joined

San Pablo’s Contra Costa College as ESL professor and

chair of the Foreign Languages Department.

Intrigued by the students she taught every day,

who had interrupted schooling or who had experi-

ences in underperforming schools, she learned more

about UC Berkeley’s School of Education and its

emphasis on urban education. She liked what she saw.

“I felt I knew a lot about language acquisition but

I didn’t know that much about education,” says Segade,

43. “Sure, I had a master’s in ESL but I had never read

Vygotsky,” she jokes.

Despite a successful track record, Segade ques-

tioned her ability to do well at UC Berkeley. “Realizing

that I could be a good student here was a big surprise,”

she now says, “and that was very rewarding.”

Segade’s biggest surprise came when Language

and Literacy, Society and Culture nominated her for

the Spencer Research Training Fellowship Award for

2007–08. The Richmond resident didn’t apply, nor did

she have any idea about the application process.

LLSC professor Sarah Freedman says that her advisee

was very deserving of the Spencer. “Gabriela is sensitive

as a teacher, deeply caring about her students and has

a strong understanding of what it means to be a profes-

sional… She has a promising career ahead of her.”

“My ESL students [at Contra Costa College] are

a great source of ideas and I really value that,” says

Segade, a GSI for two education courses here. “They

inform how I design research and how I think about

how things play out in the classroom.

“I get to talk to people whose lives we’re supposed

to make a difference in. I get to see how these theories

and ideas play out in the real world.”

in Memoriam… Rodrigo “Rod” Rodriguez, Jr., 1985–2007

received the Buck Scholarship, which covered tuition

and expenses until 2015 when he expected to receive

his Ph.D. He was also awarded a Gates scholarship,

but declined the honor so another student could

benefit.

Rodriguez was close to his family and commuted

every weekend for the past three years to spend time

with them. He was deeply committed to his Oak Park

community, and was appointed to the city’s Youth

Council and tutored underserved students.

The Education 190 class community is collecting

donations in his honor. All questions and donations

may be sent to InHonorOfRod@gmail.com.

Rodriguez, a 21-year-old senior majoring in

American Studies and minoring in Educa-

tion, was killed in his hometown of Sacra-

mento on September 16.

According to his classmates in Education

198, his driving passion was to be an educa-

tor, an entrepreneur and an agent of social

change. He was an Education 190 facilitator

in fall 2007 and tutored students at Hoover

Elementary School in Oakland for three years and

worked at the UC Berkeley Student Learning Center.

The youngest of three sons, Rodriguez was the

first of his family and friends to attend college. He

Winter 2007 13

students

Luke Miratrix, a doctoral student in

SESAME (the Graduate Group in Science and

Mathematics Education) was awarded a pres-

tigious National Science Foundation Gradu-

ate Fellowship (a multiyear scholarship).

Jennifer Langer-Osuna and Maxine McKinney de Royston were awarded com-

petitive fellowships to travel to the University

of Manchester in England to discuss their

research at the second Socio-cultural Theory

in Educational Research and Practice Confer-

ence in September. McKinney de Royston also

served as the graduate student representa-

tive on the search committee for the new

vice chancellor for equity and inclusion.

POME doctoral students Brandon Nichol-son and Jessica Rigby served as Education

Pioneers Fellows, a full-time, 10-week sum-

mer program for talented graduate students

in business, education, law, policy and other

disciplines. Nicholson trained in San Fran-

cisco USD, and Rigby in Oakland USD.

Yasmin Sitabkhan, a doctoral student in

Cognition and Development (DMS), was

awarded a grant from UC Berkeley’s Institute

of Human Development to conduct a study of

the mathematics of urban child street sellers

in Mumbai, India.

Kenzo Sung was awarded the Ehrman

Fellowship to spend spring 2008 at Kings

College, Cambridge University. The POME

doctoral student will be engaged in the com-

parative study of class, race and colonialism

in education. Sung was awarded a 2006–07

Spencer Fellowship and recognized with an

outstanding GSI award in 2006.

Joint Doctoral Program in Special Educa-

tion students Vicki Benson-Griffo, Ellen Cook, Emmy Fearn and Shelley Nielsen

and LLSC student Diana Arya helped

breathe life into the first conference of the

proposed UC Center for Research in Special

Education, Disabilities and Developmental

Risk (SPEDDR) held in Santa Barbara in

January. The doctoral quintet shared their

research with peers, honed their presenta-

tion skills and networked with faculty and

students with similar research interests

from across the UC system. Nielsen was able

to work with a UC Santa Barbara professor

who now serves on her dissertation commit-

tee. Cook and Benson-Griffo, who serve on

SPEDDR’s Doctoral Advisory Council, hope

more students will make the most of career-

expanding opportunities when the second

annual conference convenes in January 2008.

honors…

Cognition and Development: Sereeta Alexander, Jennie Chiu, Katie Lewis, Uyen Ly, Maxine McKinney de Royston, Katie Schmidt, Allison Scott, Meghan Shaugnessy, Crystal Simmons, Yasmin Sitabkhan Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education: Vicki Benson-Griffo, Jaci UrbaniLanguage and Literacy, Society and Culture: Paula Argentieri, Erica Boas, Dafney Dabach, Sera Hernandez, Alexis Martin, Adam Mendelson, Gabriela Segade, Amy StornaioloPolicy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation: Sarah Braunstein, Kim Hunynh, Erica TurnerThe Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education

(SESAME): Janet Casperson

School of Education doctoral candidates Jose Arias,

Language and Literacy, Society and Culture; Mary Alice Callahan, Policy, Organization, Measurement, and

Evaluation; Emily Gleason, Language, Literature and

Culture/Language and Literacy, Society and Culture;

Amanda Lashaw, Language and Literacy, Society and

Culture; Alexis Martin, Language and Literacy, Society

and Culture; and Linda Platas, Cognition and Develop-

ment, earned outstanding Graduate Student Instructor

(GSI) awards for 2006–07.

From left, Luke Miratrix; Vicki Benson-Griffo and Katie Schmidt share smiles at the three-day Spencer Fellows retreat with GSE faculty members at Marconi Conference Center on Tomales Bay; Brandon Nicholson; Ellen Cook, Diana Arya, Emmy Fearn and Benson-Griffo; Meghan Shaugnessy

Spencer Fellows for 2007–08The final year of the $10,000, one-time fellowship awards are as follows:

Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) awards for 2006–07

14 connected

Pre-service Initiative Takes Root in GSE, Local Schools By Zack Rogow

As graduate students file into the Arts in

the Elementary Classroom course in

Tolman Hall, they discover a percussion

instrument at each desk — castanets, a frog–shaped

wood block, a triangle, a rain stick, even a donkey’s jaw-

bone, or quijada — and begin to toy with their sounds.

When the Developmental Teacher Education

(DTE) class begins, teaching artist Nydia Gonzalez

shows the credential students how to use movement,

singing and musical instruments for a variety of class-

room activities. The students stand in a circle and use

their hands and bodies to make sounds that recreate

the whoosh and tinkle of a rainforest. They learn a

traditional Mexican game that uses song and movement

to teach the concept of opposites. Then they collabo-

rate to write a song that summarizes the plot and

theme of the children’s book classic Charlotte’s Web.

By the end of the two-hour class, they have learned

a repertoire of techniques that involve music and

movement for a range of curricular lessons — pre-

cisely what the Arts Education Initiative (AEI) was

designed to do, when it launched in 2003.

Supported with a new, 2.5-year, $413,000 grant

from the Ford Foundation and supplemental funds

from the Heller Charitable Foundation, the program

infuses arts education into DTE and Principal Lead-

ership Institute credential programs at UC Berkeley

and other teacher credential programs at partner

campuses at CSU East Bay, Humboldt State, Mills and

St. Mary’s. While the AEI plays a different role at each

of the five campuses, graduates of these pre-service

programs are expected to integrate the arts through-

out the curriculums when they begin teaching in

K–12 schools.

Bucking Trends“People who care about the arts are alarmed at the

dwindling presence of arts in the schools,” says GSE

professor emeritus Paul Ammon, AEI’s director and

principal investigator. He says the AEI is bucking

strong national and statewide currents toward back-

to-basics curriculum and test prep that consume

much of the school day. “We’re treating the arts as

fundamental to learning for K–12 students, as well as

for teachers and administrators.”

Della Peretti, DTE coordinator and a key faculty

member in the initiative, feels that incorporating the

arts at the School of Education has strengthened the

credential program’s content as well as its applicant

pool. “The number of artists who have applied to the

program has dramatically increased,” says Peretti.

First-year DTE student Jordan Emmart says that

Arts Start

Winter 2007 15

the AEI was a major reason that she applied to UC

Berkeley. “I worked in musical theater for years before

deciding to become a teacher,” she says. “I was looking

at different teacher education programs, and when I

found this one, I stopped looking.”

Emmart and other DTE students learn to play

guitar in a class offered by Guitars in the Classroom,

an organization that advocates its methods nation-

wide and provides instruction to partner schools at

CSU East Bay and Mills. The instructors teach open

string tuning so that even novices can easily master

songs that they can use for instruction. “It’s not just

a course that teaches students how to play the instru-

ment,” says Peretti. “The guitar is a vehicle toward a

curriculum integration class.”

Local ImpactWhile there is not yet any empirical evidence that the

AEI has had an impact in Northern California schools,

there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of its success.

Four recent DTE graduates who started teaching in

a new small school, Learning Without Limits, in the low-

income Fruitvale District of Oakland, have used lessons

derived from their AEI experiences in their classrooms.

Teacher Malana Willis and another DTE graduate,

Samara Ripps, offered an arts integration project that

included nutrition, poetry and visual art to second

graders. They brought sweet peas, red peppers and

carrots for their students to taste, observe, write

about and draw. After talking about the health ben-

efits of vegetables, Willis and Ripps used a framework

that they provided students with to write odes to

their favorite vegetable. One student wrote an “Ode to

the Snap Pea” that included the line, “Oh, snap pea!…

You look like the moon.” Students went on to draw

their favorite vegetable with crayons and watercolors.

“The result was an artistic celebration of vegetables

that many of our students hadn’t tasted before our

activity,” says Willis.

“It’s a great blessing that the [DTE] teachers come

with an understanding of the importance of the arts

and how to incorporate them into their classrooms,”

says Principal Leo Fuchs, a recent Principal Leader-

ship Institute graduate.

Principal Leadership InstituteGSE’s Principal Leadership Institute [PLI] has incor-

porated the arts in multiple ways into its curricular

structure, concentrating on poetry and visual and

performing arts as ways to introduce and encode

concepts important for leadership.

This summer four conceptual frames for a good

school were introduced through readings to PLI

students. “They observed and analyzed visual art

reproductions and made analogies between con-

ceptions of a good school and the artisitic images

and themes,” says Principal Leadership Institute

coordinator Lynda Tredway, an accomplished fabric

artist.

In addition, Tredway says that performance artists

work with PLI students, using theater exercises and

oral presentation guidelines, to assist them in delivery

of vision statements.

While the Leadership Institute’s performance art

strand was in place before AEI, Tredway says, “We’re

more deliberate about looking at PLI’s curricular

structure and artistic products [since receiving the

AEI grant]. How do we make sure aspiring principals

have a deep and sustained artistic experience so when

they leave here, they carry it with them and add value

to their schools?”

During 2007–08, PLI is implementing the BRAVO

project, which will translate the historical and

educational history of race in California into artistic

representations. Five artists will work with PLI

students at designated points during the year to

create artistic representations of historical content to

be presented in a works-in-progress exhibition and

performance next June.

As the AEI develops in the Developmental Teacher

Education and PLI programs at UC Berkeley and other

Northern California teacher education programs, it

will be augmented by feedback from future gradu-

ates like Emmart and graduates like Fuchs, Willis and

Ripps who share their school experiences with current

program participants.

Says Peretti: “I’m hopeful that what we learn here

will make a difference for students in Northern

California and beyond.”

“We’re treating the arts as fundamental to learning for K–12 students, as well as for teachers and administrators.”

16 connected

Two dozen kids in small, mixed groups squirm

in anticipation, then nearly in unison out pop

science materials, marble-patterned composi-

tion books, pencils, glue sticks and a room full of

smiles in Teri Hedges’s class at Huegel Elementary

School in Madison, Wisconsin.

“What do you know about making a two-coordi-

nate graph?” Hedges asks her fourth and fifth graders

as she confidently circles the room. She thanks the

students, half of whom are English Language Learners,

for sharing their ideas.

Clearly, the informal classroom conversation

does not look like the annual, standardized Wisconsin

Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE), which is

administered to Hedges’s students as well as other

fourth, eighth and twelfth graders in the Badger

State. Still, it is a barometer — one piece of a

comprehensive, integrated assessment system

developed at the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment

Research Center (BEAR) at UC Berkeley’s Graduate

School of Education.

Built on the class curriculum, this catalyst to

learning provides Hedges with a set of easy-to-use

assessment tools to generate solid diagnostic (em-

bedded) and evaluative (benchmark) information

to track the progress of her students and direct her

teaching. The bottom-up approach that hundreds of

teachers like Hedges use with the FOSS (Full Option

Science System) curriculum provides reliable infor-

mation for measuring precisely how much each stu-

dent learns about the big ideas in science over time.

Conversely, the top-down, high-stakes WKCE

includes commercially developed questions used in

schools across the country as well as those devel-

oped specifically to improve coverage of Wisconsin’s

academic standards. The aggregated results offer a

distant snapshot of how well Huegel Elementary or

the Madison Metropolitan School District is doing

in science or other core subjects.

“It’s important that the assessment system is

based on instruction and what’s actually in the

curricula,” says Mark Wilson, a psychometrician and

education researcher who founded the BEAR Center

15 years ago.

The BEAR Necessities of Assessment for LearningBy Steven Cohen

Test of Time

Winter 2007 17

you know, assessing student knowledge extends

way beyond a weekly quiz. It’s about what students

learned.”

Meggett says that when she used to give weekly

quizzes, too much time had passed to clarify mis-

conceptions once she handed the quizzes back.

“When I give them immediate feedback, they are

able to reflect on their own learning and make nec-

essary changes immediately. Students tell me they

can see how much they have learned.”

At the end of the school day, Hedges says that

she makes a point to look at her students’ com-

position notebooks for the data they’ve collected

and organized and the conclusions they’ve drawn.

Sometimes she uses sticky notes to provide written

feedback to individual students.

When she doesn’t have time to give students

direct feedback, Hedges reviews as many notebooks

as she can and makes notes about items she wants

to address with the class during the next lesson.

“What I’ve found to be most important is taking

the time to look at the student work as often as I

can,” says Hedges. “I want to ensure that they under-

stand the content before they take the ‘I-Check.’ ”

Hedges also gives an initial survey with open re-

sponse and multiple-choice items and a post-test af-

ter the FOSS variables unit. She says she gets excited

when she compares her students’ pre-instructional

and post-instructional performance because “I can

see how much progress they made.”

Hedges says that the different embedded assess-

ments are not just another prescription for test

stress or learning barriers. On the contrary, she says

“Our system is all about deciding what you

want to measure, how you are going to observe it,

understanding how the users are going to respond

and what you might do about it, and then deciding

how to put all that evidence together so you get the

actual measurement that you care about.”

Wilson and his BEAR team have been applying

those principles to four associated building blocks,

each of which represents a stage of assessment

development: (1) define the progress variables, the

big ideas and skills you want to develop over

time; (2) perform the items design, the assessment

activities that best portray progress on those big

ideas; (3) describe the outcome space, the way you’ll

interpret student responses; and (4) select the most

feasible measurement model, the system that estab-

lishes that the assessment is reliable, valid and usable.

Those principles resonate with Hedges and other

educators nationwide who favor teacher-managed,

classroom-based learning and assessment.

“Students today come to us at such a variety of

levels with a variety of backgrounds that comparing

them against each other is unfair,” says Hedges, who

has used the FOSS kits developed at UC Berkeley’s

Lawrence Hall of Science for six of the 16 years that

she has taught all subjects at Huegel Elementary.

“What I want to see is individual improvement.”

Mary Beth Meggett, a third-grade teacher at

Stiles Point Elementary in Charleston, South

Carolina, who has used the same Assessing Science

Knowledge (ASK) system for four years, says that

when she began using embedded assessments/

science notebooks and “I-Checks” — a benchmark

assessment short for “I check my own work” given

as part of ASK after each FOSS investigation — she

“really started to understand student learning.

“I told a colleague, ‘Science was so much easier

to teach before I knew if the kids really got it,’ ” says

Meggett. “She looked at me like I was crazy. But,

“I was stunned when students asked me if they could take an I-Check two or three weeks into this unit. They wanted to find out how they were doing!”

BEAR director Mark Wilson believes that assessment should be an essential part of instruction.

Two dozen kids in small, mixed groups squirm

in anticipation, then nearly in unison out pop

science materials, marble-patterned composi-

tion books, pencils, glue sticks and a room full of

smiles in Teri Hedges’s class at Huegel Elementary

School in Madison, Wisconsin.

“What do you know about making a two-coordi-

nate graph?” Hedges asks her fourth and fifth graders

as she confidently circles the room. She thanks the

students, half of whom are English Language Learners,

for sharing their ideas.

Clearly, the informal classroom conversation

does not look like the annual, standardized Wisconsin

Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE), which is

administered to Hedges’s students as well as other

fourth, eighth and twelfth graders in the Badger

State. Still, it is a barometer — one piece of a

comprehensive, integrated assessment system

developed at the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment

Research Center (BEAR) at UC Berkeley’s Graduate

School of Education.

Built on the class curriculum, this catalyst to

learning provides Hedges with a set of easy-to-use

assessment tools to generate solid diagnostic (em-

bedded) and evaluative (benchmark) information

to track the progress of her students and direct her

teaching. The bottom-up approach that hundreds of

teachers like Hedges use with the FOSS (Full Option

Science System) curriculum provides reliable infor-

mation for measuring precisely how much each stu-

dent learns about the big ideas in science over time.

Conversely, the top-down, high-stakes WKCE

includes commercially developed questions used in

schools across the country as well as those devel-

oped specifically to improve coverage of Wisconsin’s

academic standards. The aggregated results offer a

distant snapshot of how well Huegel Elementary or

the Madison Metropolitan School District is doing

in science or other core subjects.

“It’s important that the assessment system is

based on instruction and what’s actually in the

curricula,” says Mark Wilson, a psychometrician and

education researcher who founded the BEAR Center

15 years ago.

The BEAR Necessities of Assessment for LearningBy Steven Cohen

Test of Time

18 connected

Fire-alarm headlines about the California High School Exit Exam are grabbing the public’s attention,

but the real news in education may be “School Readi-ness,” as more educational professionals are trying to head off the problem at its source by helping infants, toddlers and preschoolers get ready to learn.

The Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP), developed at the BEAR Center at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, has emerged as California’s chief assessment tool for documenting and tracking young children’s developmental progress over time.

“Assessing kids this young requires an unprecedented team effort from psychometricians and developmental researchers,” says Gwen Stephens of the California Department of Education’s (CDE) Child Development Division. So Stephens, who had worked with BEAR director and GSE professor Mark Wilson when she directed other California assessment programs, such as the Golden State Exams and California Standards Test, turned to him again. Stephens understood that the BEAR Assessment System, with its emphasis on teachers’ knowledge of children and precise, psychometrically sound assessment, would be an ideal match for CDE’s fledgling DRDP project.

“Preschoolers are absolutely terrific at being them-selves and doing all those things that they do,” says BEAR’s DRDP project director Stephen Moore, “but they are not always going to stop on demand and answer questions that an adult reads from a test booklet [a requirement of the Bush-era Head Start NRS direct assessment protocols].

“Imagine instead assessing a child’s development across domains such as social interaction, the self, cognition and motor coordination without them ever realizing it?” Moore says.

Moore says that teachers who use DRDP’s embedded assessment are able to identify four progressive levels

of development in 39 separate observational contexts during normal play and early learning activities, all of which are based on scientific research literature and best practice in early childhood education.

Teachers trained to use Desired Results Develop-mental Profile are able to translate knowledge of their children into a formal assessment. The training uses video of infant, toddler and preschooler behaviors in at least one DRDP–identified developmental level for the 39 observational contexts. In addition, the teachers use samples from a child’s portfolio of work and anecdotal notes they write about their students.

For example, one teacher wrote this note about a three-year-old girl named Kavita:

“Kavita separated out the animal figures from the other toys in the bucket. She made a corral out of blocks and put only the horses inside, leaving the other animals outside it. She said, ‘I have my horses so they don’t run away.’ ”

This one observational note about Kavita informs her teacher’s decisions about rating the three year old on her classification skills in the math domain, verbal expression in the language domain, as well as other areas of development. The teacher has a full portfolio on every child, with months of notes, samples of work, and other reminders to help her complete the entire DRDP, whose instruments are calibrated and scaled to transform the teacher’s ratings into valid and reliable measurements of the child’s development.

“Although the child is none the wiser about being assessed,” says Moore, “the teacher is much the wiser about the child.”

“Preschoolers are absolutely terrific at being themselves and doing all those things that they do, but they are not always going to stop on demand and answer questions that an adult reads from a test booklet.”

Collected wisdom The Desired Results Developmental Profile

18 connected

Stephen Moore

Winter 2007 19

that her students want more opportunities to check

their own learning.

“I was stunned when students asked me if they

could take an I-Check two or three weeks into this

unit,” Hedges marvels. “They wanted to find out

how they were doing! Students feel this is another

piece of their learning. They are prepared to check

their understanding. And they all agree that it’s less

scary than quizzes or other tests they used to take,

so they relax and probably do a much better job

because they know we will talk more about these

concepts before the final (post-test) assessment.”

During a recent class, one fourth-grade girl

noticed that her two-coordinate graph did not

have the same shape as the others projected on an

overhead, so the class discussed where they thought

there was a problem, where they thought the point

on the graph might have been plotted incorrectly

and how to revise their work.

Hedges’s students then began to recheck the

data that they had collected after testing the effect

of length on the number of times a pendulum

swings in 15 seconds and confirmed where to place

the point.

Hedges codes each assessment based on specific

guides that BEAR and FOSS have developed for the

curriculum. She then enters the codes to record

student performance into a computer program

called ClassMap, which produces reports on each

of her students throughout the module.

“I think a big part of what we do is prepare teachers

to think about what they’re looking for when they

look at student work,” says Cathleen Kennedy, who

created the ClassMap system at BEAR.

“We care about how a student’s response gives us

a hint as to what the student is understanding and

what he or she is struggling with,” says Kennedy.

“And that’s what we try to highlight in the way we

teach teachers to interpret student work. It’s not

a check-off. Did they get it? Did they not get it? It’s

“Science was so much easier to teach before I knew if the kids really got it.”

an understanding that if they didn’t get it, what do

they need? And that’s the most valuable part of our

work: helping teachers understand what assess-

ment is about.”

Kennedy, who taught Computer and Information

Science at the College of San Mateo and was recog-

nized as National Community Colleges Professor of

the Year in 1998, is keenly aware that teachers may

not have enough time in their day to take a closer

look at student work.

“Teachers need to give grades,” she exclaims. But

she says that her work at BEAR guides “the kind of

assessment that teachers do to know how to help

their kids tomorrow morning in the classroom.”

So Kennedy is devoting many of her working

hours to applying new psychometric techniques to

develop a technological tool for assessing how well

students in grades 4–8 respond to complex perfor-

mance tasks in mathematics and science classes.

This National Science Foundation–funded

project, known as the Formative Assessment

Delivery System (FADS), will, Kennedy says, “reduce

the amount of time required for teachers to score

complex student work with new kinds of items that

can be scored automatically

or with some scaffolding for

teacher scoring and, through

the professional development

component, help teachers

learn how to appreciate and

use formative assessment.”

The FADS and ASK proj-

ects are just two of seven

collaborative projects that

Wilson and the BEAR team of

staff and graduate students

Mary Beth Meggett’s students tell her how much they’ve learned.

Teri Hedges reviews her students’ notebooks to check their progress.

20 connected

Each year, approximately 4.7 million fifth-grade students try to solve a question very similar to this

one given on the California Standards Test:

Maurice talked on the telephone to two friends. He talk-ed to Sherry for 1/4 hour, and to Gabriel for 1/3 hour. How much time did Maurice spend on the telephone?

A. 1/6 hour B. 2/7 hourC. 5/12 hourD. 7/12 hour

Roughly 70 percent of the test-takers pick the correct answer (D).

While the response rate may reveal that some fifth graders can calculate 1/4 + 1/3 at the state, district or school level, it has limited value on a class or individual level, according to Graduate School of Education pro-fessor Alan Schoenfeld, who has directed the Balanced Assessment, Mathematics Assessment Resource Service and Diversity in Mathematics Education projects at Berkeley, working closely with assessment and profes-sional development specialists David Foster and Linda Fisher at the Silicon Valley Mathematics Assessment Collaborative, known as MAC.

“Assessment can be a powerful tool for examining what students understand about mathematics and how they think mathematically,” says Schoenfeld. “This helps students, and it also helps teachers. As they reflect on what their students demonstrate about their own knowledge,

in Quantitative Methods and Evaluation juggle at any

given time (see DRDP, page 18, and DIAS, page 23).

The nerve center for this cutting-edge education

assessment research and design is tucked into a corner

of Berkeley’s City Center building, seven blocks from

Tolman Hall. An established law firm is directly across

from the BEAR Center office, and the Berkeley-Albany

Municipal Court down the hall bustles when court is

in session.

Inside the proverbial BEAR den, its seven diligent

employees seem to march to the beats of their own

psychometric tools. But they also find time to socialize

and enjoy their off-campus status with informal pizza

lunches at Jupiter Beerhouse or birthday parties in the

cramped office.

It’s a scene that Wilson, a former Australian Coun-

cil of Educational Research officer and University of

Chicago Ph.D., could not imagine when he first enlisted

graduates and postdoctoral students (see Derek Briggs

profile, page 24) for his fledgling effort in 1992, six years

after he first joined the GSE faculty as a visiting assis-

tant professor.

The BEAR Assessment System grew out of two early

Wilson assessment projects: California’s voluntary Gold-

en State Exam, which debuted in 1985 while Bill Honig

was State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and

which met its demise in 2003 with the implementation

of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation; and SEPUP

(Science Education for Public Understanding Program),

an innovative science curriculum for grades 6–12 that

Fraction Traction The Mathematics Assessment Collaborative

teachers can deepen their own knowledge of mathematics, student learning and teaching.”

MAC, which works with school districts around the Bay Area, including Berkeley Unified School District, has provided formative and summative assessments for students and used student responses in professional development for teachers and to inform instruction.

For example, teachers working with MAC assess their students’ knowledge of fractions with tasks like “Sharing Pizza.” The task gives fifth graders the op-portunity to identify fractional parts, combine common unlike fractions, draw representations of fractions and use fractions in a sharing context.

Sharing PizzaAretha, Beth, Carlos and Dino go in a pizza shop and order three different pizzas. They divide the pizzas so that they each end up with the same amount to eat. Aretha can’t eat seafood. The other friends like all the pizzas.

Aretha gets all the pieces labeled A. Beth gets those labeled B. Carlos gets those labeled C. Dino gets those labeled D.

Cheese Seafood Sausage

20 connected

Winter 2007 21

was first developed at Lawrence Hall of Science in 1987.

Wilson spent lots of time with his GSE colleague

Katherine Sloan reviewing the projects to try and

extract what they thought were the core principles.

They formally described them in a journal article,

“From Principles to Practice: An Embedded Assessment

System,” published in 2000.

“We thought we’d done something rather good,”

recalls Wilson, with a thick Australian twang, “so we

asked ourselves, ‘How can we explain what we’ve done

here without telling them every detail?’ ”

Kathy Long, a FOSS curriculum developer at Lawrence

Hall of Science, was one of the educators who liked

Wilson’s ways. She took his Measurement in Education

and the Social Sciences class at GSE in 2000 and has

collaborated with BEAR ever since. The ASK grant to

develop FOSS’s assessment system was funded by the

National Science Foundation (NSF) and includes FOSS,

BEAR and others who have worked together since 2003

to develop it.

The ASK assessment design puts research into

practice and draws from the influential National Re-

search Council report and book, Knowing What Students

Know, which was published in 2001. The report, which

highlights the BEAR Assessment System, encouraged

curriculum developers to create tools that would en-

able teachers to implement high-quality assessment

within daily instructional practices, and recommended

that assessment design recognize three components:

cognition, observation and interpretation.

1. What fraction of the Cheese pizza does Aretha get? __________

What fraction of the Sausage pizza does Aretha eat? __________

How much pizza does Aretha eat? _________

2. Complete the diagram below to show how five friends — Aretha, Beth, Carlos, Dino and Erica — would divide the three pizzas.

Remember that each person gets the same amount to eat.

Remember that Aretha can’t eat seafood, but the other friends like all three pieces.

How much pizza does Aretha eat this time? Explain _________________________________

On this task, 68 percent of the 11,000 fifth graders in MAC were able to calculate 1/2 + 1/4 in Part 1, and 33 percent were able to demonstrate any proficiency

Cheese Seafood Sausage

AB

C CD

B A B

CD

with any of the mathematics in Part 2, roughly the same number that answered the California Standards Test question. But the difference between the high-stakes test and the classroom assessment as a diagnostic tool is substantial. Despite being able to do the numerical calculations, many students divided the circles into clearly unequal parts, such as

and labeled each part as being 1/5 of the pizza! A close look at student work like this revealed

fundamental gaps in understandings that multiple-choice items like the test question given above don’t reveal at all. Such information gives teachers more to think about and work on. The question arises, “How can I teach fractions so that my students really do understand that all the fifths (or thirds, or fourths, etc.) have to be the same size? Just as with medical diagnoses, better tests lead to better follow-ups.

Assessment “packages” constructed by the Balanced Assessment project have been made available for general teacher and school district instructional use. The Balanced Assessment/Mathematics Assessment Resource Service team produces annual assessment used for both formative and summative assessments by MAC.

Winter 2007 21

Alan Schoenfeld

22 connected

Debates about the role of teacher quality in American education are not new. Studies about the effects

of teaching and teacher characteristics on student achievement have been part of the policy landscape for decades.

What is new is the call to define what constitutes a “highly qualified teacher” under the 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation. Under NCLB, a highly qualified teacher is one who has at least a bachelor’s degree, full state teacher certification and demonstrated knowledge in the subjects taught.

One question that emerges again and again with the NCLB definition of teacher quality is, How do we measure teacher quality? And, more important, how do we ensure that the interpretations derived from those measures are meaningful, consistent and fair? What does it mean to warrant the multiple competencies of a “beginning” teacher to do the work of teaching in a K–12 mathematics or science classroom? How would we measure progress of teachers — as they move from “methods” courses in pre-service programs to field instruction placements to the very first years of class-room teaching — in a coherent, systematic way?

UC Berkeley’s BEAR Center is collaborating with University of Michigan faculty and researchers to study just these questions within UM’s program for preparing elementary mathematics teachers. The goal is to start a conversation across classrooms, departments and programs that asks, What does it mean to measure students’ progress and growth over time in a way that supports and sustains their development as teachers in mathematics education?

UM collaborators Deborah Ball and Tim Boerst note, “Because teaching is a practice that integrates knowing and judgment in action, we believe that the preparation of elementary mathematics teachers must be grounded in the doing of mathematics teaching and the use of mathematical knowledge in teaching practice.”

This work is being carried out under the aegis of

the Developing an Integrated Assessment System for Elementary Teacher Education (DIAS) project. This NSF-sponsored project aims to develop, implement and evaluate a prototype for an integrated assessment system in elementary teacher education.

UM’s Pamela Moss, the project’s principal investiga-tor, says that assessment is needed to prepare teachers to “provide clinical feedback on teaching practice, to help teacher educators decide what to do next in plan-ning instruction, to track progress over time, to make consequential decisions about readiness to teach and to evaluate teacher education programs. Different purpos-es require different configurations of evidence of student teachers’ learning and the factors that shape it.

“The project focuses on three settings for initial professional development: the subject matter methods course and related field instruction, the student teaching semester and related seminar, and, for assessment purposes only, the initial induction year.”

“The unique focus of the DIAS project is on con-structing measures that are relevant and meaningful to classroom, field and program-level outcomes,” says BEAR Center director Mark Wilson.

Specifically, the BEAR Center is collaborating with the UM team in developing the constructs to be mea-sured, such as progress variables, an item bank, a set of scoring procedures and the technical calibration of the prototype assessment system.

Brent Duckor, a postdoctoral fellow at the BEAR Center, says that the research team expects multiple and nuanced uses of data derived from the assessment system.

“We hope to have assessments that support the development of student teachers for teaching math-ematics,” says Duckor, “but also aid in the development of the school-based field instructors and university-based faculty who work with these student teachers in analyzing beginner teaching practice and would like to give helpful, targeted feedback.”

“The unique focus of the DIAS project is on constructing measures that are relevant and meaningful to classroom, field and program-level outcomes.”

Measuring Quality Developing an Integrated Assessment System for Elementary Teacher Education

Brent Duckor Deborah Ball

Winter 2007 23

The BEAR Assessment System is based on the

idea that good assessment addresses the three inex-

tricably linked parts of this triangle:

The system’s principles and building blocks

also inform assessment design projects in the

Graduate School of Education’s areas of study, as

well as campus-wide equity initiatives such as Cal

Prep (see page 7).

These projects include the Performance As-

sessment for California Teachers (PACT), a state-

approved evaluation for teacher-candidates to earn

teaching credentials in California, developed at

Stanford with a consortium of 30 teacher education

programs including GSE teacher education faculty

members; and classroom assessments being devel-

oped for new mathematics and science curriculum

units, such as the new Learning Through Math-

ematical Representations project (see page 11).

It could be argued that the principles and prac-

tices of the BEAR Assessment System even impact

the School Psychology program, where students are

trained to conduct assessments and diagnose learn-

ing disabilities, mental retardation and giftedness,

among others.

Yet as far as BEAR has come, as wide as its principles

have spread, as fair and useful as its byproducts

have become to students, teachers and parents,

lingering questions persist about its efficacy.

Is it possible to design and use assessment

systems that meet the accountability demands

of policymakers? Could assessment for learning

ultimately inform, improve, even replace high-

stakes standardized tests (summative assessments

as they are called in the education vernacular) like

the annual, standardized Wisconsin Knowledge

and Concepts Exam or South Carolina’s Palmetto

Achievement Challenge Tests that Hedges and

Meggett’s students take every year?

Both Kennedy and Wilson believe that the way

is already here; it’s the will that may be harder to

muster. BEAR is conducting studies that compare

progress on state standards tests of students in

classrooms that use BEAR Assessment Systems

with traditional forms of the same curricula, and

the results look promising.

Still, state and federal law effectively mandate

that public education can be gauged by the number

of students who reach the “proficiency” mark on a

standardized test, usually a multiple-choice one,

that appears cheaper to administer.

According to Kennedy, Wilson and other educa-

tion researchers at the Graduate School of Education,

such easily graded items have hidden costs, such as

the hours spent on test prep.

“There is an opportunity cost associated with

the expenditure of classroom time to produce

assessment results with such limited utility,” says

Kennedy, “particularly when alternative assess-

ment models could provide more timely and useful

information about what individual students know,

what they are able to do with that knowledge and

what learning activities would be most immediately

useful to them.”

When that happens, Kennedy believes that

“teachers, students, parents and administrators

will come to see assessment results as clues as to

what should happen next in the classroom, and

they may come to look forward to the next oppor-

tunity to evaluate progress.”

Not surprisingly, Wilson agrees with his col-

league. “The power of assessment is in its role as

the connection between instruction and student

learning,” he says. “The key is to have a reasonably

accurate and comprehen-

sive idea of the ways that

students grow to under-

stand the content and to

build assessments in line

with that.

“When assessments are

built using this approach,

testing doesn’t have to be

lost time for learning, but

rather an essential part of

instruction.”

observations interpretation

cognition

BEAR co-director Cathleen Kennedy designs technological assessment tools for teachers.

Winter 2007 23

Debates about the role of teacher quality in American education are not new. Studies about the effects

of teaching and teacher characteristics on student achievement have been part of the policy landscape for decades.

What is new is the call to define what constitutes a “highly qualified teacher” under the 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation. Under NCLB, a highly qualified teacher is one who has at least a bachelor’s degree, full state teacher certification and demonstrated knowledge in the subjects taught.

One question that emerges again and again with the NCLB definition of teacher quality is, How do we measure teacher quality? And, more important, how do we ensure that the interpretations derived from those measures are meaningful, consistent and fair? What does it mean to warrant the multiple competencies of a “beginning” teacher to do the work of teaching in a K–12 mathematics or science classroom? How would we measure progress of teachers — as they move from “methods” courses in pre-service programs to field instruction placements to the very first years of class-room teaching — in a coherent, systematic way?

UC Berkeley’s BEAR Center is collaborating with University of Michigan faculty and researchers to study just these questions within UM’s program for preparing elementary mathematics teachers. The goal is to start a conversation across classrooms, departments and programs that asks, What does it mean to measure students’ progress and growth over time in a way that supports and sustains their development as teachers in mathematics education?

UM collaborators Deborah Ball and Tim Boerst note, “Because teaching is a practice that integrates knowing and judgment in action, we believe that the preparation of elementary mathematics teachers must be grounded in the doing of mathematics teaching and the use of mathematical knowledge in teaching practice.”

This work is being carried out under the aegis of

the Developing an Integrated Assessment System for Elementary Teacher Education (DIAS) project. This NSF-sponsored project aims to develop, implement and evaluate a prototype for an integrated assessment system in elementary teacher education.

UM’s Pamela Moss, the project’s principal investiga-tor, says that assessment is needed to prepare teachers to “provide clinical feedback on teaching practice, to help teacher educators decide what to do next in plan-ning instruction, to track progress over time, to make consequential decisions about readiness to teach and to evaluate teacher education programs. Different purpos-es require different configurations of evidence of student teachers’ learning and the factors that shape it.

“The project focuses on three settings for initial professional development: the subject matter methods course and related field instruction, the student teaching semester and related seminar, and, for assessment purposes only, the initial induction year.”

“The unique focus of the DIAS project is on con-structing measures that are relevant and meaningful to classroom, field and program-level outcomes,” says BEAR Center director Mark Wilson.

Specifically, the BEAR Center is collaborating with the UM team in developing the constructs to be mea-sured, such as progress variables, an item bank, a set of scoring procedures and the technical calibration of the prototype assessment system.

Brent Duckor, a postdoctoral fellow at the BEAR Center, says that the research team expects multiple and nuanced uses of data derived from the assessment system.

“We hope to have assessments that support the development of student teachers for teaching math-ematics,” says Duckor, “but also aid in the development of the school-based field instructors and university-based faculty who work with these student teachers in analyzing beginner teaching practice and would like to give helpful, targeted feedback.”

“The unique focus of the DIAS project is on constructing measures that are relevant and meaningful to classroom, field and program-level outcomes.”

Measuring Quality Developing an Integrated Assessment System for Elementary Teacher Education

Brent Duckor Deborah Ball

Winter 2007 23

24 connected

alumni

Spotlight

When Professor Mark Wilson introduced the terminology

of test instruments and items to his introductory mea-

surement course a decade ago, Derek Briggs was one of

his young students and had little idea about what those

terms meant.

Today, Briggs, an assistant professor of quantitative

methods and policy analysis, teaches essentially the

same course to his University of Colorado students,

collaborates on cutting-edge research with Berkeley Evaluation and Assess-

ment Research Center (BEAR) colleagues, and co-authors scholarly journal

articles with his former GSE mentors.

The connection isn’t lost on the personable California native, and neither

is its significance. That’s because Briggs has placed a premium on education

and teaching ever since he was a high school student in South Pasadena and

witnessed some of his favorite teachers striking for better wages.

“One thing that you can do in academia is pass on what you’ve learned to

your students, and that’s a great thing,” says Briggs, who earned a doctorate in

Quantitative Methods and Evaluation from the School of Education in 2002.

“My graduate students are getting to the point where they’re getting ready to

make their own contributions, and it feels good to know that I’m playing a role

in that.”

School of Education professors Wilson and David Stern, former GSE

professor Paul Holland and UC Berkeley statistics professor David Freedman

all had a hand in mentoring Briggs when he attended Cal. Even before he gave

the GSE commencement address, Briggs was publishing scholarly journal

articles with Stern as well as doing research at BEAR

and the National Center for Research on Vocational

Education.

Since leaving the School, Briggs has earned an AERA

outstanding dissertation award, a Carnegie Foundation

research grant and most recently a prestigious National

Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

“It’s a nice validation of my early career, that I’m on

a good trajectory,” says Briggs modestly.

“I like to take on questions that are puzzling in

educational research and use the methodological

tools that I’ve learned to try to unravel those ques-

tions,” he says. “There’s also a great deal of satisfaction

in helping other people who, like me, are ultimately

looking for ways to improve the teaching and learning

process for kids.”

Derek BriggsMaking His Mark

Three Principal Leadership Institute

alumni — Benjamin Redmond, Roma

Groves and Kyla Johnson Trammel —

were honored by the Oakland Unified

School District at its inaugural Expect

Success Awards in September. The awards

recognize instructors, administrators

and staff who have distinguished them-

selves through their contributions

to Oakland Public Schools in 2007.

From top, Interim state administrator Oakland USD Vincent Matthews with Ben Redmond; Roma Groves, David Pearson and Eric Nelson; Matthews and Kyla Johnson Trammel at the awards ceremony.

denise brown, an artist, teacher and Berkeley

High School administrator, and 2003 Principal

Leadership Institute graduate, died February 9

at age 50.

“She was the heart and soul of Berkeley

High,” says her friend and colleague, Thelette

A. Bennett, retired vice principal at the school

of 3,200 students. “She was an extraordinary person who had a gift

and a passion for helping young people.”

After earning her teaching credential in 1997, Ms. brown began

her education career at Berkeley’s LeConte Elementary. She is

survived by her daughter and son, three brothers and a sister, and

her former husband.

in Memoriam… denise brown, 1957–2007

Winter 2007 25

…class notesIf you would like to submit a Class Note or subscribe to gsE-news to receive Connected and the gsE-bulletin by e-mail, visit gse.berkeley.edu/admin/communications/subscribe.html. Class Notes for future issues must reach us via e-mail or letter by October1.

1930sAlmira Bacon DePace, B.A. ’37,

teaching credential ’38, taught art, French

and physical education in San Leandro for

25 years. She started the girls’ swim team,

the first San Leandro interscholastic sports

program for girls, and was the senior schol-

arship counselor. After retirement, she

chaired a community committee to restore

the former house of Ygnacio Peralta.

1940sMurray Shapiro, B.A., secondary

teaching credential ’47, retired after 52

years in education. She spent 42 years as a

public secondary teacher and 10 as super-

visor of teacher training at CSU Los Angeles.

Shapiro also earned advanced degrees and

credentials from UCLA in the ’50s.

1960sShirlianne Olsen, B.A. ’56, Early

Childhood Education credential ’57, M.A.

School Psychology ’63, retired as a Title I

reading specialist and first-grade teacher.

James Leathers, credential ’65, retired

as a human resources manager and is

working part time for the Los Angeles

County Department of Health Services.

Richard Rystrom, Ed.D. ’68, is serving

a two-year term as a Peace Corps volunteer

in Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine, working

on community development projects.

1970sMeredith Smith, credential ’70, is a

senior psychologist supervisor in the Cali-

fornia Department of Corrections and Re-

habilitation where she initiates programs

that benefit inmates and the community.

A former special education teacher, she has

four grown children.

John Thelin, M.A.

Education ’70, Ph.D. ’73,

received the AERA

Exemplary Research

Award for Division J

Higher Education and

Postsecondary Education at its conference

in April. A university research professor

and a member of the Educational Policy

Studies Department at the University of

Kentucky, he also received the 2006 Provost’s

University Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Sherlyn Chew,

teaching credential ’72,

M.A. Curriculum and

Instruction ’74, began

teaching third grade

at Oakland’s Lincoln

Elementary School and Chinese music at

Laney College. In 1995, after acquiring her

first Chinese instruments, she became a

full-time music teacher at Lincoln where

she started the first Chinese orchestra in

American public schools. Last summer she

started to teach music full time at Laney.

Chew’s orchestras and choruses have

performed in many local venues and have

earned national media attention. She has

performed Chinese music internationally

and received numerous honors for her

teaching.

Julie Reis, multiple subject credential

’75, single subject credential/Biology ’97,

teaches biotechnology and human physiol-

ogy at San Francisco’s Abraham Lincoln

High School. She participates in various

research partnerships with UCSF, involv-

ing high school students in lab research,

and is a National Board certified instructor.

Anne Matarrese Everton, single subject

credential/History ’76, is in her 11th year of

teaching eighth-grade U.S. history at Thomas

Hart Middle School in Pleasanton. She enjoys

constitutional history and law and is very

involved in National History Day with her

students and district. Previously she taught

high school history for six years at Hayward’s

Moreau High School, then took time away from

teaching to raise three children.

Woodrow Clark, Ph.D. ’77, is an ad-

junct and visiting professor in California,

Denmark, Italy and China and managing

director of Clark Communications LLC.

Clark was former Senior Policy Advisor,

Energy Reliability, to former California

governor Gray Davis.

Janine Collins, B.A., teaching creden-

tial ’77, is Pacific District Sales Manager for

Pearson Education where she is respon-

sible for a team of 10 account executives

and two curriculum specialists.

Ashley Halliday, M.A., teaching creden-

tial ’77, is the Director of Human Resources

for the Sonoma Valley Unified

School District. He worked as an

elementary school principal for about 10

years prior to the district position. He is

currently completing work on a doctorate

in educational leadership with the first

cohort of the Capital Area North Joint

Doctorate in Educational Leadership

(CANDEL) at UC Davis and Sonoma State

University. His dissertation focuses on

the impact of reform collective bargain-

ing efforts on small and suburban school

districts.

Louise Frankel Stoll, Ph.D. Policy, Planning

and Finance ’79, de-

signed and obtained

FAA certification

for the only light-

weight, portable child aviation restraint.

A mother of five and grandmother of nine,

Stoll manages Kids Fly Safe, LLC, which

markets the safety device (kidsflysafe.

com). She served as Assistant Secretary

for Budget and Programs in the U.S.

Department of Transportation during

the first term of the Clinton administra-

tion and part way into the second. After

graduating from the GSE, Stoll worked

for a number of years in financial manage-

ment positions in the City and County

of San Francisco and senior executive

positions in the private sector. She was

recruited as the first chief operating

officer of the United Jewish Community.

26 connected

John Lee, Ed.D. ’79, has

been president of JBL

Associates since 1985,

doing consulting for

federal agencies, state

agencies, associations

and institutions. One of its major projects

is developing the “Achieving the Dream”

database, which provides participating

community colleges a longitudinal student

database to evaluate the effectiveness of

their efforts to improve student success.

Karen M. Smith-Cheng, B.A., teach-

ing credential ’79, became a dentist, prac-

ticed for 25 years in the Chicago area, and

is now retired. She is active in the Ameri-

can Association of University Women,

leads book discussion groups and hopes to

use her teaching experience as a volunteer.

1980sKatharine Barrett, M.A. Science Educa-

tion ’80, is project director for the NSF

teacher education grant “Retaining and

Mentoring Teachers Through Math and

Science in School Gardens.” She directed

the Biology Education Department at

the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) from

1982 to 1996, and established the LHS

Family Health Program in 1997. In 2005,

she became associate director for educa-

tion at the UC Botanical Garden. She

is co-author of Math in the Garden and

the forthcoming Botany on Your Plate.

Stephen Juan, Ph.D. ’81, has taught nearly

30 years at the University of Sydney. Last

year he became a Fellow for the Public

Understanding of Human Sciences. He

appears regularly on Australian radio and

television. His latest book, The Odd Body 3, has

been nominated for science book of the year

in Queensland’s Premier Literary Awards.

Henry (Rick) Mitchell, Ph.D. Ed Psy-

chology ’82, was ordained as a minister in

the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

and served as a volunteer assistant pastor

at University Christian Church in Berkeley.

He retired from engineering consulting in

1997 and has served in volunteer chap-

laincy and interfaith work. He now leads

an ecumenical group in Walnut Creek and

edits a website and blogs at peacepoliti-

cal.com.

Andrea Mein DeWitt, M.Ed. ’86, retired

after 20 fulfilling years as a reading specialist

and teacher in the Lafayette School

District. She now works with credential

candidates in both Multiple Subject and

Reading Leadership credential programs

at Saint Mary’s College School of Education

in Moraga. Ms. DeWitt also coaches beginning

teachers in BTSA Induction Seminars and

“life long learners” in the Masters in Teach-

ing Leadership Program at St. Mary’s.

David Mendelson, single subject cre-

dential/English ’86, has taught high school

English in Webster Groves, Missouri, for 15

years after leaving California in the early

’90s. “I have published no books, won no

honors, earned no advanced degrees and

joined no distinguished societies,” he says.

Alison Waterman, single subject cre-

dential/English; Bay Area Writing Project

’87, is a sixth-grade core teacher at Orinda

Intermediate School as well as a first-year

BTSA mentor. Previously she taught in

Vallejo Unified.

Pauline Harris, M.A.

’84, Ed.D. Language in

Reading and Writing ’89,

is Senior Lecturer and

Director of Early Child-

hood Education Studies

in the Faculty of Education, University

of Wollongong, Australia. This year she

earned an Outstanding Contribution to

Teaching and Learning award. Ms. Harris

is the founding coordinator of the Litera-

cies Research Initiative at the University,

leading a team of nine literacy researchers,

which earned an Australian Research

Council Discovery Grant to investigate

relationships between literacy research,

policy and practice. Additionally, her re-

search on reading instruction in the early

school years, published in Research in the

Teaching of English, won an award for its

likely impact on teaching practice.

1990sSuzanna McGee, multiple subject

credential ’91, has taught computer

science in Highland Park, New Jersey,

since graduating from UC Berkeley.

Jim Spira, Ph.D. Counseling Psychology

’91, recently joined RTI International

as Senior Manager, Psychology; Center

for Distributed Learning. He conducts

research that uses advanced technology to

facilitate learning in clinical populations,

including teaching autistic children social

skills via computer gaming, and helping

cancer patients cope with side effects from

chemotherapy as well as helping soldiers

prevent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

through virtual reality systems.

Margaret Anne Crehan Hyde,

Ed.D. Higher Education Administration,

’92, retired after 10 years as Dean of Arts

and Sciences at San Antonio College, the

largest single-campus community college

in Texas and one of the 10 largest in the

country. Her division consists of 22 depart-

ments offering classes in 37 disciplines.

Harold Kushins, Ed.D. ’92, recently

retired as the Director of Curriculum and

Accountability for the Tracy Unified

School District. He is now an educational

consultant and faculty member of the

University of Phoenix.

Tony Smith, M.A. ’93, Ph.D. ’02, was

appointed Deputy Superintendent for

Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice

for San Francisco Unified School District.

Previously Smith was superintendent of

Emery Unified, where he led the 800-

student district out of a state takeover.

The former UC Berkeley football player

will be presented with the 2008 Califor-

nia Alumni Association’s third annual

Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in

Achievement by a Young Alumnus. The

award honors significant accomplish-

ments at an early stage of a recipient’s

career, and pays tribute to Mark Bing-

ham, ’93, who died September 11, 2001, on

United Airlines Flight 93.

…class notes

Winter 2007 27

Joe Jaconette, Ed.D.

Education Admin-

istration ’95, is the

new superintendent

of the Orinda Union

School District. He was

superintendent of the Carmel Unified

School District. Previously he was with

the Government Relations Division of

McGraw-Hill Education.

Lilly Roberts, Ph.D. QME ’96, is Educational

Research and Evaluation Administrator for

the California Department of Education.

She manages three state testing programs,

including the California English Language

Development Test. Previously she managed

the state’s high school exit exam program.

Helena Worthen, M.A. ’93, Ph.D. LLC

’97, has been promoted to clinical associ-

ate professor in the Institute of Labor and

Industrial Relations at the University

of Illinois. She offers labor education for

workers and organizations such as unions

and workers’ centers throughout Illinois.

Amalia Aboitiz, Ph.D. Educational

Psychology ’98, was recently hired as pro-

fessor and coordinator of the new School

Psychology Specialization in the Graduate

Counseling Program at St. Mary’s School

of Education in Moraga. She welcomed the

first cohort of candidates this fall. Before

launching and overseeing the program,

she worked as a school psychologist.

Theo Dawson, Ph.D. Human Devel-

opment ’98, has left academia to pursue

real-world applications of her work. She

founded the Developmental Testing Service

in 2004. The business offers research and

consulting services as well as online cogni-

tive developmental assessments.

2000sGibson Fay-LeBlanc, M.A. MUSE ’00,

is executive director of The Telling Room,

a nonprofit writing program for young

writers and storytellers, ages eight to 18,

located in Portland, Maine.

Amanda Godley, Ph.D. LLC ’00, was

promoted to associate professor of English

Education at the University of Pitts-

burgh’s Graduate School of Education.

Suzanne Yee, M.A. Athletes and Academic

Achievement ’00, is entering her eighth

season as assistant women’s swim coach at

Washington State University, where she is

in charge of recruiting and dryland work-

outs and shares on-deck coaching duties.

Lora Bartlett, Ph.D. POME ’01, an as-

sistant professor of education at UC Santa

Cruz, has received a $60,000 fellowship

from the Smith Richardson Foundation to

support her policy research on the global

migration of teachers.

Bernadette Chi, Ph.D. POME ’02, is visiting

professor at the Institute for Civic Leader-

ship at Mills College. She also works part

time as director of evaluation at Sports4-

Kids, a nonprofit organization in Oakland.

Lorraine Falchi, DTE ’02, is a doctoral

student in the Department of Curriculum

and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia

University, where she focuses on literacies.

Luis Huerta, Ph.D. Policy and Organiza-

tions Research ’02, is assistant professor of

education at Teachers College, Columbia

University, and the author of several

articles in Education Policy and the Journal of

Education Finance.

Charles Dorn, Ph.D.

POME ’03, an assistant

professor of education

at Bowdoin College in

Maine, was named

recipient of the college’s

top prize for junior faculty for 2007. His

new book, American Education, Democracy,

and the Second World War, examines the

ways in which U.S. schools served as civic

institutions both by preserving their

historic function of educating students

for democracy and by supporting the war

effort.

Maisha Fisher, Ph.D. ’03, is the author

of Writing in Rhythm: Spoken Word Poetry

in Urban Classrooms. She is an assistant

professor in educational studies at Emory

University.

Karen Lauritsen, M.A. MUSE ’04, com-

pleted a documentary short, “My Name Is

Teacher,” which is being shared with new

teachers in charter schools. She works as a

continuing education student adviser and

program representative in the Arts Depart-

ment at UCLA Extension.

Jeeva Roche-Smith, Ph.D. LLSC ’04, was

appointed founding

director of Making

Waves Academy in

Richmond, which

opened in September. The Academy offers

after-school education and college-going

opportunities to students in Richmond

and San Francisco.

Ethan Johnson,

Ph.D. Social and Cultur-

al Studies ’05, has been

awarded a Ford Diversity

Postdoctoral Fellowship

for the 2007–08 school year. Johnson, now

an assistant professor in the Black Studies

Department at Portland State University,

will be conducting research in Quito,

Ecuador, as a follow-up to his dissertation

research, which examined the relationship

between schooling and racial inequality in

an Afro-Ecuadorian region.

Jennifer Russell, Ph.D. POME ’07, is

an assistant professor/research scientist

at the University of Pittsburgh’s School

of Education and Learning Research and

Development Center.

AER A ChicagoReception

Yael Kali (postdoc ‘00-02), Department of Education, Israel

Institute of Technology, left, with Orit Parnafes (M.A. ‘01, Ph.D. ‘05),

School of Education, Tel Aviv University

Pharmicia Mosely (M.A. ‘00, Ph.D. ‘03), left, and Maisha Fisher

(Ph.D. ‘03).

28 connected

friends

Spotlight

Three GSE faculty members — professor W. Norton

Grubb, Dean P. David Pearson and an anonymous

donor — have each established endowment funds to

support fellowships in response to a challenge by

former Graduate Division Dean Mary Ann Mason, who

matched faculty contributions on a dollar-for-dollar

basis. The anonymous gift was established in memory

of Alex McLeod, a Senior Lecturer at the University of

London and a visiting GSE professor.

“GSE faculty make a tremendous contribution

through scholarship, teaching and service,” says

Mason. “Their investment of time and talent has paid

notable dividends for their students, colleagues, dis-

ciplines and community. We are grateful for another

kind of contribution: a financial gift that will make

them partners to future generations of students.”

Anyone may support any of these three funds with

any amount at any time. The Alex McLeod Memorial

Fund supports Multicultural Urban Secondary

English (MUSE) master’s and credential program

students. The W. Norton and Erica B. Grubb Fund

supports Principal Leadership Institute students.

The P. David and Mary Alyce Pearson Fund sup-

ports aspiring reading and literacy specialists.

Inspired by the success of Mason’s Graduate

Division challenge program, Chancellor Robert

Birgeneau has announced that he will match

new additional gifts to these endowed funds

from members of the campus community: faculty

and their spouses, current students, staff and

retired staff. In addition to matching contribu-

tions to existing funds, Chancellor Birgeneau

will match gifts from the campus community

in any amount up to $250,000 to establish new

endowed funds to support students in need.

For more information about fellowship endowments

or the chancellor’s fellowship challenge, please call

the GSE development office at 510/643-9784.

GSE Faculty Participate in Named Funds Initiative

Norton and Rikki Grubb, with Lynda Tredway, applaud Principal Leadership Institute

graduates.

Right, David Pearson congratulates Thao Duong,

recipient of the David and Mary Alyce

Pearson Reading Award.

Haste Street Center Opens

Left, Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology, and Lynn

Merz, executive director of the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund

On September 5, the Haste Street Early Childhood Education Center celebrated

the individuals and organizations that brought the new facility, winner of a

UC/CSU award for Best Integrated Design Process, to fruition.

Through the Haste Street Center, UC Berkeley scholars from education, social

welfare, psychology, public policy and public health will work together to train

leaders and develop programs and practices that address the rapidly changing

understanding of the field and the critical educational needs of young children.

Graduate School of Education professor Bruce Fuller and Dean David Pear-

son will play an active role in developing the center, the first new UC Berkeley

child-care facility in seven years. GSE currently offers a minor in early childhood

education, and an interdisciplinary major and master’s degree are being developed.

Winter 2007 29

spring scholarship tea Celebrates Students and Donors

Scholarship donors and recipients celebrated

their partnership in service to education at the

fourth annual GSE Scholarship Tea at Berkeley’s

Bancroft Hotel.

Many of the donors who attended the spring event

recalled how they had received scholarships when

they were students in need and described how

gratified they were to give something back to today’s

students. Scholarship recipients shared how extra

financial support helped them better balance studies,

student teaching and employment. Students

marveled that “a stranger” would lift them out of a

difficult financial bind, making it possible for them

Spring 2007 Scholarship Recipients

to achieve their academic and career goals.

The School of Education community thanks the

many scholarship donors who support our dedicated

future educators, with gifts large and small, year

after year. Special thanks, too, to an extraordinary

anonymous donor, who, for the fourth straight year,

matched GSE scholarship gifts dollar-for-dollar up

to $50,000.

To make a scholarship gift, use the envelope

enclosed in this magazine, go to givetocal.berkeley

.edu, or call the Graduate School of Education

Development Office at 510/643-9784.

GSE Professor Emeritus Ned Flanders joins California Flanders Fellows.

Martin LewisPaul MazzeiKatharine MortonZareen PoonenKatherine walsh-CunnaeMalana willisCalifornia Flanders Fellows

Daphne Ng Theresa Kathryn Franklin Memorial Award

Kellie MullinDaphne NgAlice PaalMirian Hyun Jin SongDanae TowneMabel W. Goode Awards

Daniel SewardGSE Alumni Association AwardAndrew P. FisherGSE Faculty/Staff Award

Louisa UrbaniLenore Bertagna Heffernan Award

Mahea GaskinsEsther Shang-Lan wangMiranda Heller Award

Shayla DudaMargaret Kidd Award

Dan Davies Professor Nadine Lambert Memorial Award

Gordy Steil Cheryl Liebling Award

Ashley NulphVicky Umene Kerri and Mark Lubin Awards

Mary Beth Bravo Alex McCleod Memorial Award

Jessica Rigby John U. Michaelis Award

Samantha JohnsonAlice PaalMalvina Walford Morledge Awards

Elisabeth Matson Edgar and Camilla Morphet Award

Michelle Vargas Helen Murphy Neumann Award

Serian StraussLanette V. Jimerson Marilyn Nye Memorial Awards

Bettina HsiehPhi Delta Kappa Award

Thao Duong David and Mary Alyce Pearson Reading Award

Kathryn MoellerRegan Pritzker and Chris Olin Award

Sarah PressMolly Quinn Award

Maxine McKinney de Royston Marilyn Raby Memorial Award

Vanessa Orman Lynne Rauscher Award

Nathan Kirk Robert and Esther Rice Award

Haegi KimStacy Marple David H. Russell Awards

Diana Arya Lorraine Spingola Memorial Award

Phillip MillerJames Stone Award

Kim Nga Huynh Dale Tillery Memorial Award

Greta Marie Kirschenbaum Charles Toto Award

Jennifer Lynne Fazio Leon and Barbara Weitz Award

Kathleen Bailey Wu Family Award

Heather Bergmann Jane Baack Award

Sereeta AlexanderCharles S. Benson Memorial Award

Mirian Hyun Jin SongSarah Elisabeth wrightMara W. Breech Foundation Awards

Patrick HamiltonSarah RousseveRobert J. Breuer Awards

Tamara E. Henry David Dansky Award

Mia Callahan Dyslexia Award

Dawn williams Lily Wong Fillmore Award

Heather BergmannMorgan Gutierrez AlconcherLara HaleSamantha Johnson

30 connected

DonorS July 1, 2006, tHrougH June 30, 2007The Graduate School of Education gratefully acknowledges the following

individuals, corporations and foundations that generously supported our

efforts to advance education and to provide opportunity for all.

AnnuAl Fund donors $1,000-$4,999Robert J. Breuer and GSEAA Charles W. Fisher Scholastic Inc. Victor and Arlene Willits Jonathan and Heather McCracken Wu

$500-$999Kerin A. BakerKaren J. BlankCatherine Smith Nicoll and Richard C. NicollSusan Powell and James M. RevieMargaret G. SaulsberryLinda C. WingSara L. Wragge

$250-$499Deborah and Paul BakerKathleen and Richard DavisAkemi and Karl EhrlichGeneral Mills FoundationMrs. Alice R. Giuffre Susie and Thomas M. GriffinMyrna and Richard JonesMorris Kwong-You LaiMary and John B. LeeDella Martinez and Jeffrey ShepardKaren L. MendoncaAustin and Marjorie PrindleJane P. Riede-MeyerhoffJennifer and Philip SatreShell Oil Company Foundation Inc.Victor Tien-Cheng ShenPhyllis M. and Allan C. TappePatricia and Jeffrey Williams

$100-$249Margaret Allen and Philip PerkinsSandra and David AndersonVerna J. ArnestNorena N. Badway, Ph.D.Rena M. Bancroft, Ph.D.Louis F. Batmale, Ph.D.Terry and Stephen BeckJoyce and Joseph BerryAllen E. BlackElizabeth and David BlockJill and Jeffrey Braden, Ph.D.Mary and Mark Bunge, Ph.D.Mrs. E. Merlaine CalhounJane G. Cavala Shelley and Sherman CavinessDr. Donald B. ChambersJune and Stephen ChaudetJohn M. Chavez, Ph.D.Dr. Tzi-Cker ChiuehRhoda and Howard ColemanBarbara M. ColicinoAssistant Vice Provost Barbara Gross DavisRosette and Homer DawsonTom FinnMary and Ned FlandersDr. and Mrs. Rex C. Fortune, Jr.Marianne and William GagenDr. Michele GarsideMargaret L. GebhardJack and Rosalie GiffordDr. Allan P. GoldDr. and Mrs. William D. GrafftMrs. Manjula Ray Gupta and Dr. Haragauri GuptaCarolyn and Eugene HaselkornMomoko Miriam and Roy HatamiyaLinda and Gerald C. HaywardHarriett G. JenkinsAnnette and Robert KarlakElisabeth and Robert KleinDiane and John Kopchik

Sue and Philip LambertJana and Freeman LaneDr. Stephen B. LawtonLarry M. Leskiw and Dr. Phyllis J. HallamJames B. LytjenNancy A. MackoDr. Terry L. MaulProfessor Emeritus William A. McCormackFrederick E. MurrayAlison and Gerald OgdenCarol and David OlsonRuth Shigeko OmatsuDr. Kristin I. Palmquist-Warriner and Philip C. WarrinerHyun-Sook Park and Stanley YoungMildred and William PeaseDr. and Mrs. Douglas A. PenfieldCarol and Richard C. Ponzio, Ph.D.Patricia and Richard J. RankinCynthia and Ronald RavenCarolyn and Thomas ReeseSteven and Susan Richardson, Ph.D.June and Eugene RobertsDana and James RobinsonLalit M. Roy, Ph.D.Anne and Keith SchroderMargaret and E. J. ScrofaniDr. Doris S. Smith and Mr. J. B. SmithJohn P. Smith, IIIWilliam and Margaret SnyderDrs. Roslyn and Donald SutherlandMichael L. Swindell and Christine M. SilvaMary Sullivan Talbot and John D. TalbotItsuko Terada

Winter 2007 31

From left, Tiffany Price, San Francisco Foundation; Assemblymember Carol Liu; Leslie Haynes,

Jobs for the Future Early College Initiative

leaDerSHipDonorS

$500,000-$999,999The James Irvine FoundationMike C. Wood

$100,000-$499,999Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth E. Behring Mary Jane and William Brinton Arthur Vining Davis FoundationEstate of Helen Murphy Neumann

$50,000-$99,999The Spencer Foundation William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

$10,000-$49,999Anonymous Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Charitable Foundation Inc.Professor Bruce C. Fuller Dorothy and Dennis Sheahan Charitable Family Fund Trust Heather McCracken and Jonathan Wu

he discovered that the

toy market offered noth-

ing to help his three-year-

old learn phonics. So,

from a wooden alphabet

puzzle, Wood created an

interactive toy that made

phonetic sounds which

could be combined to

form words.

Phonics Desk®,

LeapFrog’s first product,

made a big splash, and in

the 17 years since Wood

first helped teach his

son to read, the company

has become synonymous

with teaching reading

skills through time-

tested teaching methods

and a healthy dose of multisensory fun.

Today LeapFrog SchoolHouse products are used

in more than 100,000 classrooms in the United States

and have won numerous awards from the education

industry. Wood retired from LeapFrog in 2003.

While pursuing a wide range of entrepreneurial

interests, Wood is also committed to help allevi-

ate the inequities he sees in public education by

narrowing the funding gap between high- and

low-income districts. He has “adopted” schools in

Richmond, donating learning tools and equipment.

A founding member of the Graduate School of

Education Advisory Board, Wood recognized a kindred

spirit when he first met GSE professor Glynda Hull

at an Advisory Board meeting last spring. Hull

LeapFrog Founder Funds GSE’s Work in Urban Education

Mike Wood knows how important it is to make learning fun. As the father of a toddler

discussed DUSTY (Digital Urban Story Telling for

Youth), her signature project that combines teens’

love for self-expression, social networking, electronic

games, music and graphics with opportunities to

improve their aesthetic, writing, reading and critical

thinking skills in a relaxed, supportive environment.

The Stanford and Cal graduate is also a supporter

of CAL Prep, UC Berkeley’s charter school, and the

new Haste Street Early Childhood Education Center.

“I wish there were schools like these on every corner

throughout the Bay Area,” says Wood.

Moved by the School’s efforts as well as his friend-

ship with Dean David Pearson, who has served on

LeapFrog’s board, Wood has pledged $500,000 to

support graduate fellowships and programs in the

GSE over the next 10 years that address problems

in urban education, including DUSTY in 2007.

Says Hull: “The pleasure of getting to know

Mike Wood has been the pleasure of engaging

with a genuinely creative and expansive thinker.

In the space of one invigorating conversation, he

will grasp the key aspects of your work, help you

imagine new directions for it, illustrate the impor-

tance of making learning fun and re-inspire you

to strive to unlock all kids’ potential. We are so

honored to have his support for our program.”

Wood’s donation establishes the Lucretia

Goldsmith K–12 Opportunity Fund, in honor

of his mentor Lucretia Goldsmith, who helped

him financially when he was a college student.

“It is a great honor to have Mike’s enthusiasm,

support and friendship,” says Pearson. “He will be a

like-minded and talented partner as we work on areas

of common concern in urban education over the next

several years.”

friends

Winter 2007 31

DonorS July 1, 2006, tHrougH June 30, 2007The Graduate School of Education gratefully acknowledges the following

individuals, corporations and foundations that generously supported our

efforts to advance education and to provide opportunity for all.

AnnuAl Fund donors $1,000-$4,999Robert J. Breuer and GSEAA Charles W. Fisher Scholastic Inc. Victor and Arlene Willits Jonathan and Heather McCracken Wu

$500-$999Kerin A. BakerKaren J. BlankCatherine Smith Nicoll and Richard C. NicollSusan Powell and James M. RevieMargaret G. SaulsberryLinda C. WingSara L. Wragge

$250-$499Deborah and Paul BakerKathleen and Richard DavisAkemi and Karl EhrlichGeneral Mills FoundationMrs. Alice R. Giuffre Susie and Thomas M. GriffinMyrna and Richard JonesMorris Kwong-You LaiMary and John B. LeeDella Martinez and Jeffrey ShepardKaren L. MendoncaAustin and Marjorie PrindleJane P. Riede-MeyerhoffJennifer and Philip SatreShell Oil Company Foundation Inc.Victor Tien-Cheng ShenPhyllis M. and Allan C. TappePatricia and Jeffrey Williams

$100-$249Margaret Allen and Philip PerkinsSandra and David AndersonVerna J. ArnestNorena N. Badway, Ph.D.Rena M. Bancroft, Ph.D.Louis F. Batmale, Ph.D.Terry and Stephen BeckJoyce and Joseph BerryAllen E. BlackElizabeth and David BlockJill and Jeffrey Braden, Ph.D.Mary and Mark Bunge, Ph.D.Mrs. E. Merlaine CalhounJane G. Cavala Shelley and Sherman CavinessDr. Donald B. ChambersJune and Stephen ChaudetJohn M. Chavez, Ph.D.Dr. Tzi-Cker ChiuehRhoda and Howard ColemanBarbara M. ColicinoAssistant Vice Provost Barbara Gross DavisRosette and Homer DawsonTom FinnMary and Ned FlandersDr. and Mrs. Rex C. Fortune, Jr.Marianne and William GagenDr. Michele GarsideMargaret L. GebhardJack and Rosalie GiffordDr. Allan P. GoldDr. and Mrs. William D. GrafftMrs. Manjula Ray Gupta and Dr. Haragauri GuptaCarolyn and Eugene HaselkornMomoko Miriam and Roy HatamiyaLinda and Gerald C. HaywardHarriett G. JenkinsAnnette and Robert KarlakElisabeth and Robert KleinDiane and John Kopchik

Sue and Philip LambertJana and Freeman LaneDr. Stephen B. LawtonLarry M. Leskiw and Dr. Phyllis J. HallamJames B. LytjenNancy A. MackoDr. Terry L. MaulProfessor Emeritus William A. McCormackFrederick E. MurrayAlison and Gerald OgdenCarol and David OlsonRuth Shigeko OmatsuDr. Kristin I. Palmquist-Warriner and Philip C. WarrinerHyun-Sook Park and Stanley YoungMildred and William PeaseDr. and Mrs. Douglas A. PenfieldCarol and Richard C. Ponzio, Ph.D.Patricia and Richard J. RankinCynthia and Ronald RavenCarolyn and Thomas ReeseSteven and Susan Richardson, Ph.D.June and Eugene RobertsDana and James RobinsonLalit M. Roy, Ph.D.Anne and Keith SchroderMargaret and E. J. ScrofaniDr. Doris S. Smith and Mr. J. B. SmithJohn P. Smith, IIIWilliam and Margaret SnyderDrs. Roslyn and Donald SutherlandMichael L. Swindell and Christine M. SilvaMary Sullivan Talbot and John D. TalbotItsuko Terada

Winter 2007 31

From left, Tiffany Price, San Francisco Foundation; Assemblymember Carol Liu; Leslie Haynes,

Jobs for the Future Early College Initiative

leaDerSHipDonorS

$500,000-$999,999The James Irvine FoundationMike C. Wood

$100,000-$499,999Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth E. Behring Mary Jane and William Brinton Arthur Vining Davis FoundationEstate of Helen Murphy Neumann

$50,000-$99,999The Spencer Foundation William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

$10,000-$49,999Anonymous Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Charitable Foundation Inc.Professor Bruce C. Fuller Dorothy and Dennis Sheahan Charitable Family Fund Trust Heather McCracken and Jonathan Wu

32 connected

Robert L. TerrellDavid and Penelope Warren Suzanne and Peter WehausenDr. M. Linda Forsyth Weidenhamer and Robert G. WeidenhamerDr. Harvey Weinstein and Professor Rhona S. WeinsteinMajor Willie West, Jr.Professor Barbara Y. WhiteFrances and Billy WillmsProfessor Emeritus Alan B. WilsonDr. Keith R. WilsonProfessor Mark R. Wilson and Janet S. WilliamsPamela and Douglas WongJayne and Dennis Wood

$1-$99Lauren M. AdamekSusan and Marcos AlvarezDr. Joan P. AvisDorothy and Clifford BachandMrs. Roselyn B. BaskinJudith V. BebelaarMary-Claire Bernstein, Ph.D.Andrea U. Bircher, Ph.D.Barbara and Nicholas BreretonDr. and Mrs. Gerald J. BrunettiKimberly Capriola-Juza and Kevin M. JuzaAnn M. CarboneDr. Victoria O. Chan and Leland L. ChanDr. Shirley M. ConvirsStephanie F. Cowan, Ph.D.Wendi CraigDr. and Mrs. Geoffrey A. DaffornLeona E. DickeyMrs. Edith W. DonDonna J. FeciNina L. FloroLisa and Matthew FriedmanLesley GetzGretchen and Thomas F. Griswold, Jr.Wendy J. GulleySheila and George Gurnee

Donna M. HamaneLaurie R. HarrisonDrs. Otto and Grete HeinzEugene A. HesselDr. Kenneth J. HolbertRobert M. Houghteling and Elizabeth R. FishelDr. Kathleen Hurty and Reverend David HurtySharon and William JagerPatricia and Kenneth JohnsonRuth and Raymond JungMrs. Joy P. KaiserIlene and Gary KatzElizabeth KeithleyKim F. KitaAudra and Audrey Knight, Ph.D.Karl Knobler, Ph.D.Gail H. LaBonteDr. and Mrs. Kenneth L. LarsonDonna and Robert LawsonJohn A. LeeSharon and Jeff LeeAnne and David ManchesterDr. and Mrs. Robert F. Manlove, Jr.Alexis T. MartinMrs. Sandra K. MartoneAllyson R. McAuleyDeborah L. McKoyKaren M. MeldrumDr. and Mrs. Reid C. MillerPatricia and David MillerRichard F. Miller, Ed.D.Mary E. MolesworthDoris and William MoreyDr. Sheryl Morgan and Chet SeligmanDr. Judit N. MoschkovichGredy E. MossinCyndee M. NguyenJanuary A. NiceRhona and Ronald NollDr. Pearl M. OlinerLinda and Adrian OwnbyGwenyth and Robert PageStephanie L. PangL. Leann Parker

Carol M. Peñara Dr. and Mrs. Jesse Perry, Jr.Beverley and Robert PetersenPatricia and Willie PlayerCarol H. PorterS. Peter Poullada and Nancy A. SheppardChristopher J. RampoldtMidge and William RentonMary Ann and Ronald Rettig-ZucchiMargie and Morris RichmanDr. James E. RichmondDr. Nancy Rogers-Zegarra and Elias ZegarraDr. Sharon H. RossCarolyn A. RotmanDr. Susan A. RoundsDr. William H. RupleyJudith S. SamJennie F. SavoldelliSandra and Jack ScarzellaSteven E. SchlegelMarilou and John ShankelMadelaine Shellaby and Richard ShapiroMeredith and Jon ShoenbergerPaul A. Silberstein and Karen B. GlasserMargaret and Paul SlakeyNancy and George SpaethJane E. Spencer Mills and Richard L. MillsKaren and Stephen SpicerMimi and Erich SteadmanSally SwartsBarbara and Bruce SwensonLaura E. TelepChristina P. TellerRegi and Stephen TopolSandra and Kenneth TramielJoseph K. TurnageKevin M. WaescoBarbara and Frank WaldenHelen and Morton White Craig and Kim WilsonMary-Alice and Brayton WilsonLesley Young Elisabeth A. Zinser

scholArship Fund donors$5,000-$9,999Mara W. Breech Foundation Andrew and Denise Goldfarb Rotonda Foundation Carolyn Morledge Sparks

$2,500-$4,999Miranda Heller

$1,000-$2,499Jane and Lawrence BaackProfessor Emerita Geraldine Clifford Barbara and David DanskyTerry S. EmmettAnne and Will Gates Frank and Lenore HeffernanMargaret KiddCheryl and Mark LieblingKerri and Mark LubinPhi Delta KappaRegan Pritzker and Chris OlinLynne A. Rauscher-DavoustEsther and Robert RiceProfessor Emeritus James C. StoneLeon and Barbara Boericke Weitz

$500-$999Ceinwen L. CarneyMarjorie and Robert GoodinProfessor Jack A. GravesSara Hopkins-Powell Daniel KeeE. Toki Oakley, Ph.D., and Owen Oakley, Jr.

$250-$499Dr. and Mrs. Ryszard J. ChetkowskiProfessor W. Norton and Erica B. GrubbMarcia and John HarterCathleen and Kenneth Kennedy

Left, Dean Pearson congratulates 2007 scholarship recipient Dawn Williams.

Center, Scholar Heather Bergman with scholarship donor Jane Baack

Right, Dean Pearson joins friends Adrienne and Toni Sweet.

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Winter 2007 33

$100-$249William D. Bethell Elaine BoyceMrs. Dorothy L. BroseAlison and Steven BurkeLois and William CannadyJoan CashelClaudia Cate and Branden BickelAlice and Rudolph Chen RicoCitigroup FoundationMrs. Norma Jo Ann CoxCrail-Johnson FoundationDr. Leslie W. CrawfordPamela and Clarence Donahoe, IIIRena DorphTom FinnProfessor Joseph J. FlessaProfessor Jesus Garcia Geotechnical Engineering Inc.Violet and William P. Golden, Jr.Dr. Carol L. Brosgart and Joseph A. GrossProfessor Emeritus Frank Hauser and Lorraine F. HauserJacqueline and Terry Haws Margaret and Alan HillDr. Bonnie S. Ho and Melvin K. HoRuth and Herbert HoffmanProverb and Mimi JacobsBarbara E. JonesJocelyn and Michael KelleherKristine L. KimuraDiane and John KopchikPatricia and Warren KublerLois and Ronald LeonardMarie Luise OttoDrs. Sumner and Hermine MarshallCarol Ann B. Mosher Kathleen and John PetersonLinda Raben-Beckstrom and Robert BeckstromCarol J. RowleyMary H. SchwartzDr. and Mrs. Robert P. Sherwood

Aletha and Hugh SilcoxMary L. SoltisDr. and Mrs. Harry B. Stehr, Jr.Suzanne and Marc SteinSara B. SteinbergProfessor David and Jane SternMeredith and William TibbeyRichard G. WeinlandKathleen and Roy WhalinAnthony and Siv Larson WheelerMariol and Thomas WogamanTeresa and Otis WongLibby Wyatt-Ortiz and William OrtizDr. Rebecca J. Zwick

$1-$99Norma and Joseph Adwere-BoamahProfessor Paul R. Ammon and Mary Sue H. Ammon, Ph.D.Bernice D. BellLucia L. Blakeslee Patricia and Michael Busk Bianca and Louis CaserzaCarolyn J. DaoustGerald L. DunbarMarjorie and Dana ElmoreJames H. GreenNorman HillDr. Rita H. JonesDrs. Maya and Steven KleinElizabeth and Geoffrey KnudsenBeverly and Ronald Loos Maureen A. Maloney, Ed.D.Carroll MartinKathleen and Dasil MathewsJulia and Peter Menard-WarwickDr. Victoria C. Mui and Walter K. J. MuiMary and Jack RotheDrs. Diane and Jack SchusterMaryann SmetzerSola TakahashiAllyson L. WernerDr. David Zeff

AcAdemicTAlenT developmenT progrAmAntonia A. BadwayJeanne M. GoldsmithIvy and Robert LeeStephen M. Lee, D.D.S.Leslie A. Woolley

principAl leAdership insTiTuTe scholArship FundArnold J. AdreaniKarling J. Aguilera-FortAmanda M. AsdelDr. and Mrs. Robert W. BlackburnNeal A. BlochCurtis and Jennifer BrockGeorge C. BullisMaureen M. ByrneVerna A. CastroMary W. CoeRandall R. CoveyMary Lou and James CrannaNorma and Philip DahnkenGlenn F. DennisNicole M. DidonatoSara C. DieliVirginia L. DoldMary L. DybdahlNatalie R. EberhardThomas R. FairchildCarin D. GeathersProfessor W. Norton and Erica B. GrubbJudith A. Guilkey-Amado and Gary AmadoEulalia A. HalloranRobin E. HarleyPatricia A. Harmon

Trent and Rosemary KaufmanKevin P. KerrDongshil J. KimJ. Carlisle KimLinda M. KingstonGregory T. KoNancy M. LambertLinda and Malcolm Leader-PiconeLinda M. LeeHanna L. MaMoraima MachadoNancy and Jack MayedaJonathan J. MayerPeg MinicozziRaul MunizPamala NoliAlicia D. OrnerRobert S. PatrickHan Ngoc PhungLinda A. RardenCarole and Kenneth RobieChelda A. RuffJoshua M. Sachs-WeintraubMarisa SantoyoTai-Sun SchoemanJanine B. SheldonSheila B. SmithSusan Speyer-BoilardProfessor David and Jane SternClarence B. Stevens, Jr.Patricia TheelLynda L. TredwaySusan C. Valdez Couch and Richard W. CouchDora L. Valentin-RiosBasil M. ViarJeanne M. VillafuerteMichael P. WalkerWendy R. WardaLauran M. Waters-CherryRichard B. Zapien and Nicolle M. Gottfried

Left, PLI graduates Karling Aguilera-Fort and Angienette Estonia greet benefactor Kenneth Behring.

Right, Eileen Hutto-Powers, Catherine Gordonand interim vice chancellor Harry LeGrande

celebrate the opening of the Haste StreetEarly Childhood Education Center.

Winter 2007 33

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