Academy for Educational Development

National Forum Sept. 8 Will Set Action Agenda

Cincinnati, Ohio,  August 30, 2005  — One hundred top-level leaders from K-12 and higher education organizations, business, policy, government agencies, researchers, and national charitable groups will come together in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 8, 2005 to form common action agendas for addressing achievement gaps among K-12 students.

“Mind the Gap: New Views on Ensuring That All Students Reach Their Full Potential” will be the first of three National Policy Forums co-sponsored by the Alliance for Curriculum Reform and the Academy for Educational Development. ACR is a collaborative of more than 20 national education organizations. AED is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to solving critical social problems in the U.S. and around the world.

The Forum will be held at the AED conference facility located at 1825 Connecticut Avenue NW, in Washington DC. Organization of the Forum and follow-up research and support is being provided by the Center for Curriculum Leadership and Research at the University of Cincinnati.

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

Every state and most school districts are engaged in standards-based, systemic reform initiatives. Unfortunately, for many classroom teachers, standards-based reform has come to mean two things:

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

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