Contact: Mike Myslinski at 408-921-5769 or Vernon Gettone, 650-270-1043
LOS ANGELES – Starting today, several top education experts will join the California Teachers Association staff for a week of dynamic training at UCLA for more than 250 teachers, parents and school administrators. Participants are on teams from lower-performing schools across the state receiving intervention funding from the CTA-sponsored Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) of 2006.
The law (SB 1133) provides $2.9 billion over seven years to 488 schools statewide to reduce class sizes, hire additional counselors and provide quality training for teachers and principals. In Los Angeles County, 88 QEIA schools recently received a second round of $147 million in funding as part of $385 million allotted by the state this fiscal year to build a program of sustainable school improvement to close student achievement gaps and prevent dropouts. One workshop on Thursday focuses on the Pomona Unified School District’s strategies for using the law in middle schools, while other workshops concern the role of unions in education reform, and teacher leadership factors in transforming schools.
“This remarkable training shows our continued commitment toward helping our students who need help the most by bringing together all stakeholders to make this law a force for sustainable change in these targeted schools,” said David A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member CTA. “We secured this funding to make a permanent difference in the lives of tens of thousands of students.”
For more information about QEIA, go to http://www.cta.org/issues/current/QEIA.htm. The training is offered by the CTA Instruction and Professional Development Department and is part of CTA’s annual Summer Institute at UCLA this week for 1,200 teachers and education support professionals. Classroom instruction, cultural diversity and QEIA team leadership will be stressed. A sampling of speakers:
• TODAY: Kimberly Thomas Rapp, director of law and public policy for the Equal Justice Society, will speak on “School Climate, Culture, Race and Community” from 10:40 a.m. to noon, in the Northwest Campus Auditorium, UCLA (see UCLA map at www.ucla.edu/map/).
• TUESDAY, Aug. 5: Dr. Robert Marzano, a senior scholar with the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning center, will speak on the "Art and Science of Teaching" and hold a Q & A session from 9 a.m. to noon in Covel Commons, third floor, Grand Horizons Ballroom, Sunset Village.
• WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6: Andy Hargreaves, the Thomas More Brennan Chair of Education in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, will speak on “Sustaining School Leadership” from 9 a.m. to noon, Covel Commons, third floor, Grand Horizons Ballroom.