LCL Newsletter
Learner-Centered Leadership for Language Diverse Schools in High Need Urban Settings

Vol. 1 No. 4 March, 2005

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A Word from Dr. Danzig . . . .
Greetings.  The year is flying by and I am certain everyone is quite busy.  I wanted to start by thanking all of the facilitators, participants, and project team members who participated in the February 2005 workshop on Family-School-Community Connections.  My first hand impression was that the sessions were lively, and many people engaged in serious conversations and dialogue.  While every workshop session is different, I think this topic is one that is particularly important to school administration and furthering the project of connecting schools with families and communities.  Thanks for everyone's hard work in making this a great session.

We have listed some of the themes of each of the session for you to peruse.  If there are particular references needed, please email Gary Kiltz or me, and we will try to follow-up with you directly.  Also, at your convenience, peruse the LCL website to look at themes and references from the workshop. 

Hold the dates of June 10- June 11, 2005.  Our next session is being co-sponsored by the Southwest Center for Education Equity and Language Diversity.  The workshop is tentatively titled, Class, Culture, and Family:  What Really Matters.  We will have three guest speakers of national importance who will be making presentations:  a) Kris Gutierrez on "The Perspective of Culture," b) Annette Lareau on "The Perspective of Family," and Josué M. González on "Integrating Culture, Ethnicity, Family, and Social Class."   There will also be breakout sessions to encourage your participation in the sessions and make applications to your own schools and districts.

I look forward to our next meetings.  Best regards for a great semester.

Arnie Danzig
March 2005

 
Announcing . . . .

LCL/Metro Phoenix ENLACE Summer Institute

Class, Ethnicity, and Family: What Really Matters

June 10-11, 2005

8am – 5pm on June 10

8am – 1pm on June 11

Continental breakfast and lunch included on both days

The Pointe Resort on 16th Street in Phoenix

This Summer Institute will explore culture, ethnicity, and family in an effort to synthesize the latest thinking regarding:

Culture and its implications for instruction.

The influence of social class, especially poverty, on educational achievement and attainment.

The indispensable role of engaged families in school success.

We intend to integrate thinking about class, ethnicity and family into a new vision of schools that are responsive to these factors first, and not concentrating solely on testing and accountability measures absent consideration of these factors.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
Three distinguished speakers will represent the research base on the three thematic strands: class, ethnicity, and family. They will relate these themes to academic achievement and educational attainment:

  • Professor Kris Gutiérrez, Core Faculty in the Center on Everyday Lives of Families, and Professor, Graduate Collage of Education and Information Studies, UCLA, will speak to The Perspective of Culture.
  • Associate Professor Annette Lareau, Associate Professor Sociology, Temple University, and author of Home Advantage and Unequal Childhoods, will focus on The Perspective of Family.
  • Professor Josué González, Director of the Southwest Center for Education Equity and Language Diversity and Professor in ASU’s College of Education, will speak to Integrating Culture, Ethnicity, Family and Social Class.

RATIONALE
Through Learner Centered Leadership and Metro Phoenix ENLACE, we have learned that family participation in educational endeavors is essential to academic achievement, educational attainment, and other preparatory milestones for socioeconomic success and civic engagement for families and their children. Also, what some may assume to be typical parent-educator relationships may no longer be possible because of changing realities, especially for lower socioeconomic class families who may also be ethnic minorities.

By providing a platform for discussion from both research and practical perspectives, we intend to explore both the familiar and the unknown regarding the relationship between class, ethnicity, and family formation and maintenance, and consequent effects of their interplay on academic achievement, educational attainment, and other measures of success. Of special interest will be relationship patterns between families and educators in linguistically or culturally diverse urban schools and how particular relationship patterns—including those mediated by non-profit, community-based, or faith-based initiatives—serve to equip lower socioeconomic class and predominantly ethnic minority students to excel in school.

OBJECTIVES
You will:

  • Reassess your understanding of important relationships between:
    • social foundations (class, ethnicity, and family background) and disparity in academic achievement and educational attainment, and
    • families and the school in promoting academic achievement and educational attainment, for lower socioeconomic status students who are also ethnic minority and for other students.
  • Learn about existing school-family partnership approaches.
  • Reassess existing school-family partnership approaches in light of research.
  • Explore promises and pitfalls of school-community partnerships designed to equip families and educators to work better with each other in support of children’s academic achievement and educational attainment.
  • Explore how education policy supports or impedes development of productive school-family partnership approaches.

We look forward to your participation!

Contact Elsie Szecsy (elsie.szecsy@asu.edu) for more information about Summer Institute speakers and agenda.

Contact Gary Kiltz (gary.kiltz@asu.du) for registration information.
 
Calendar of Events

Workshops
June 10 – 11, 2005
Workshop on race, class and family. The Pointe Resort on 16th Street in Phoenix.

District Level Meetings
Creighton – May 3, 2005 ( 4:00 – 6:00 pm)
Phoenix Union High School – March 24, 2005 ( 3:30 – 5:00 pm)
Roosevelt – March 9, 2005; April 13, 2005; May 11, 2005

AERA Conference:
April 11 – 15, 2005: Montreal, Canada

 
Upcoming Conferences

American Educational Research Association
www.aera.net
April 11 – 15, 2005
Montreal, Canada

We have a cadre of LCL members from ASU and Creighton, Alhambra, Roosevelt, and Phoenix Union HS Districts participating in the AERA symposium. They will present a symposium panel at the 2005 AERA conference entitled: Demography and Democracy in the Era of Accountability.

The title of the symposium is Bridging Theory and Praxis through Professional Development for School Administrators: A University and School District Collaboration. The titles of the five papers are listed below as well as the symposium abstract and introduction.

Paper #1 – Learner Centered Leadership for Language Diverse Schools in High Needs Urban Settings: Findings from a University and Multi-District Partnership

Paper #2 – Language and Literacy Issue from a University Perspective

Paper #3 – Purposeful Mentoring as the Foundation of Administrator Professional Development in the Learner Centered Leadership Program

Paper #4 – Professional Development for School Administrators: A Preliminary Analysis of How People Learn on the Job

Paper #5 – Reconfiguring Master’s and Administrative Certification by Combining Theoretical, Craft, and Personal Knowledge

Abstract:

The Learner Centered Leadership program is a new initiative that provides professional development opportunities to school administrators through a mentoring model. The focus on learner centered leadership reflects renewed attention to the primary role of teaching and learning in the development of school leadership expertise. With a focus on learning, the need to create collaborative structures where trust, respect, and communication are promoted among the participants has been critical. In its first year, the project goal has been to develop the capacity for mentoring across districts. To create this capacity, the project has focused on building relationships among participants using a threefold process: formal workshops that introduce the districts and participants; informal gatherings that break down barriers and establish opportunities for networking; and a series of problem-solving initiatives called a team challenge that requires participants work together, communicate, and cooperate to solve the challenging activities.
 

LCL Newsletter
Learner-Centered Leadership for Language Diverse Schools in High Need Urban Settings

Vol. 1 No. 4 March, 2005

LCL home