Study after study shows that what parents do and say is of vital importance to their children’s education – knowing what their children are studying, encouraging reading and writing at home, and talking with their children’s teachers. The ISCA Parent-Teacher Conference was a great start. Parents said that the meeting was useful and they want more like it. Now the next step is to reach out to the many parents who did not come and convince them of their importance to their children’s futures.

By Wellford W. Wilms, Department of Education University of California, Los Angeles June 11, 2007

On a bright Saturday morning in April, more than 110 parents, teachers, and students attended the Parent Teacher Lesson Design Study Conference. They received a closer look at the UTLA Lesson Design Study—what is it? How does it affect students and teachers?

By Day Higuchi, Associate Director, ISCA, May 31, 2007

A new federal study comparing public and private schools reflects findings similar to those of two education researchers earlier this year: When certain scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are adjusted for socioeconomics, race, and other characteristics, public school students do as well as or better than private school students in some areas.

The study by the National Center for Education Statistics, released this month, represents the first time the U.S. Department of Education has applied techniques for controlling student-background variables to NAEP test data in a comparison of private and public schools, said Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the director of the department’s Institute of Education Sciences.

By Mary Ann Zehr, Assistant Editor for Education Week, July 26, 2006, Vol. 25, Issue 43, Page 7

The best possible education for all students has become the new vision for public education. Performance-based assessments are crucial to the achievement of this goal, for, as a teacher researcher, I know these assessments can drive student and teacher competency standards upward. And what do teachers need in order to effectively implement performancebased assessments? Teachers need deep reform of their profession and of the school systems in which they work.

By Charlotte Higuchi, CRESST/Farmdale Elementary School, Los Angeles, CA, July 1993