PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Thirty-five school superintendents from across the United States will discuss proposed changes to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act with leading education experts on Oct. 5-6, 2007 at the Westin Palo Alto, 675 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, across from the Stanford University campus.
Sponsored by noted educational publisher Zaner-Bloser, the theme of the second annual National Superintendents' Forum is "Reauthorization of NCLB: A New Era in Education?" As Congress prepares to rewrite the law before the end of the year, these experts will explore key issues and recommendations for improving it.
"The essential question for these superintendents is how the reauthorization of NCLB will affect students, teachers, and their work as educational leaders," said Ron Rapp, conference host and director of government relations at Zaner-Bloser. "The participants are from diverse urban, rural, and suburban districts and will exchange ideas to implement in their home states."
The featured presenter will be Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University and a consultant to Congress on NCLB reauthorization.
Other conference highlights include:
-- Dr. Catherine Snow, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at
Harvard University and chair of the National Academy of Sciences
committee that prepared the report "Preventing Reading Difficulties in
Young Children."
-- Dr. Maria Carlo, assistant professor of teaching and learning at the
University of Miami, will address the needs of English-Language
Learners and make recommendations based upon her research for
improving NCLB.
-- Dr. Arnetha Ball, professor of education at Stanford, will address the
"Importance of Writing in Closing the Achievement Gap."
-- A panel of experts from Stanford, Harvard, and Ohio State
University, along with other senior authors of Zaner-Bloser's
innovative Voices Reading program for grades K-5, will outline their
recommendations for changes to NCLB.
Passed in 2002, the NCLB Act set the academic goal that all public school students in America would be proficient in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-2014 school year. Among the reauthorization issues being debated in Congress are
-- Maintaining or extending that timeline for proficiency
-- Fully funding the mandates of NCLB
-- Creating flexibility in testing requirements and measuring Annual
Yearly Progress
-- Interventions for "priority" and "high priority" schools
Zaner-Bloser
