Learn about how promising digital tools and resources are now available to help you strengthen teaching and learning in middle grades mathematics, and the policy changes that California must make to take advantage of these new opportunities. In this seminar, policy leaders and experts in education technology will share and discuss what’s becoming possible with the proliferation of digital technologies in California schools.

In this seminar Robert Linquanti discusses how next-generation state assessment and accountability systems can be made more responsive to the needs and strengths of ELs. Linquanti argues that innovation must be grounded in a clear understanding of the EL population, as well as of English language proficiency and its relationship to academic subject matter learning and assessment. He explains how the common core standards “push the envelope” for ELs and educators, and argues that comprehensive assessment systems can and must strengthen teacher pedagogical practice with ELs.

As CA continues to wrestle with the challenges of providing sufficient funding for schools, understanding the relationships among school funding, effective school resources, and outcomes is essential. In this seminar Norton Grubb addresses four principal questions: (1) What kinds of school resources make a difference to outcomes? (2) Why is the relationship between spending per student and outcomes so weak? (3) Why are outcomes so inequitable? (4) And what should CA do now, in both school finance and other areas of school policy, to avoid further damage to the state’s education system?