Focused GroupGSE's Commitment to the Public Good

connect university of california, berkeley • graduate school of Education

wintEr 2009ed

Steven Cohen

From the Dean

DeanP. David Pearson

Associate Dean for Academic AffairsFrank C. Worrell

Acting Associate Dean for Professional ProgramsRichard Sterling

Head Graduate AdviserSarah W. Freedman

Assistant Dean for AdministrationLisa Kala

GSE Advisory BoardAl AdamsStacey BellMary Catherine BirgeneauMary Jane BrintonMary Jane BrockmeyerJerry CorazzaPat CrossPauline FaccianoLily Wong FillmoreNed FlandersChad Graff

Miranda Heller, ChairEllen HersheyGary HoachlanderLucinda Lee KatzCarol LiuKerri LubinPhilip LumJoyce NgAlceste T. PappasP. David PearsonBrian Rogers

A s I write my last ConnectEd column as Dean, I must say that this past year has

been by far the most challenging I have faced.

Over two years, GSE is taking a permanent cut of more than $1 million, or approximately 24 percent. Beyond the faculty furloughs affecting the entire University system, our academic and administrative staffing has been deeply cut.

Perhaps the saddest casualty is that admissions to our elementary education credential program, Developmental Teacher Education (DTE), have been put on hold for a year while we redesign it to align with the intellectual and financial resources available to us in 2009. Our Masters and Credential in Science and Math Education (MACSME) program, which was under threat, will continue because of the extraordinary commitments of our faculty to make sure all of the courses and experiences are covered.

UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education has long been recognized for the quality of its teacher education programs. All of us are committed to turning the economic crisis to some good use by using this time to explore creative

models of teaching and learning for the new era.

In response to the fiscal emergency, we are exploring a professional degree fee, similar to those currently charged by most professional schools at Berkeley — Law, Public Policy and Public Health. Given the earning potential of most of our graduates, the School of Education’s fee will be significantly less than those of other professional schools. A significant portion will be returned to low-income students in the form of financial aid.

Plans for the search for a new Dean have begun under the leadership of Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer. I stand ready to help my successor in any way that I can.

To those faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends whose paths I have crossed in my role as Dean, thank you for making these years so fulfilling and interesting, for being a friend of the GSE and sharing our passion for social justice, excellence and diversity.

P. David Pearson Dean and Professor ppearson@berkeley.edu

Cha Sanders Anthony M. SmithCarolyn SparksRichard SterlingKaren TeelWilliam TibbeyMaryEllen VogtLynn WendellVic Willits Mike WoodHeather McCracken Wu

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Features12 Mr. Smith Goes to

OaklandAn Interview with Oakland Schools Superintendent Tony SmithBy STeven COhen

14 Grant CentralMath, Science Projects Bound by Public Purpose, AccessBy STeven COhen

16 Digital Directions east Bay After-School Program Goes Global

18 Raising California Roundtable with norton Grubb and David PlankBy STeven COhen

Departments2 School News

In Brief

Dean to Step Down next year

CAL Prep Posts Big Gains

Principal Leadership Institute Celebrates 10 years

GSe Budget Crunched

10 FacultySpotlight: Jabari Mahiri

norton Grubb: On the Money

Lily Wong Fillmore

In Memoriam: herbert Simons

12 StudentsSpotlight: Irenka Domínguez-Pareto

honors

20 AlumniSpotlight: Ou Lydia Liu

Special education

Class notes

24 FriendsSpotlight: Andrew Galpern

Donors

connectedwinter 2009 • volume 4

Connected is published annually by the University of California, Berkeley,Graduate School of Education for alumni and friends.

Editor/Writer: Steven Cohen

Graphic Design: Nina Zurier

Contributing Writers: Teresa McGuire, Janine Sheldon

Alumni Council: Paula Argentieri, Diana Arya, J.R. Atwood, Christine Cziko, Emmy Fearn, Andrew Galpern, Maryl Gearhart, Huriya Jabbar, Susan Roberta Katz, Pamela Lichtenwalner, Terry Maul, Jeremy Nevis, Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, Daphannie Stephens, Leo White, Heather McCracken Wu

Contributing Photographers: Steven Cohen, Teresa McGuire, David Schmitz, Peg Skorpinski, José Zavaleta

Printer: UC Printing Service Printed on recycled content paper

connectedUniversity of California Graduate School of Education 3627 Tolman Hall #1670 Berkeley, CA 94720-1670

Phone: 510/643-9784 E-mail: ext_rel@berkeley.edu Fax: 510/643-2006 Web: gse.berkeley.eduTo subscribe to gsE-news and receive Connected and the gsE-bulletin by e-mail, please visit gse.berkeley.edu/ admin/communications/subscribe.html©2009 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

16An Oakland student enjoys a break after designing her project on SPACe2CRe8, a proprietary Internet-based social network. Photo: Peg Skorpinski

Covers: high-need Oakland students and families receive unprecedented academic support and enrichment activities through the eastbay Collaborative for Underserved Children, an initiative led by GSe Professor Glynda hull. Photos: Peg Skorpinski

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TReiSMAN TAlkS AT TilleRyGSE alumnus and MacArthur "Genius" Uri Treisman, left, gave the keynote address at the three-day Dale Tillery Institute for Community College Leadership Institute, held August 10-12 at UC Berkeley's Faculty Club. In partnership with the California Basic Skills Institute, a statewide community college effort to increase the success of students in developmental English and mathematics, teams of faculty members and administrators received training in the use of Cal-PASS (California Partnership for Achieving Student Success) data to identify effective practices and student issues, as well as to measure outcomes and develop appropriate interventions to increase the academic success of their students. Now in its fifth year, the Tillery Institute is led by W. Norton Grubb, David Gardner Chair in Higher Education; and Bernadine Chuck Fong, president emerita, Foothill College, and senior partner, Carnegie Foundation.

Teresa McG

uire

A liST OF TheiR OwNWhen New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof came out with his "Best Kids' Books Ever," on July 4, 2009, Academic Talent Development Program administrators decided to come out with a book list of their own in an effort to “share the good, the bad and the beautiful in print with parents, friends, teachers at their own schools and their ATDP peers and teachers to become members of a literate, imaginative, active citizenry.”

The ATDP book list is organized from preschool to ages 7, 8–12 and 13–18, and comes complete with useful introductions and resources for each reading level plus annotated reviews from the people who recommended the books. Once on the list, viewers will find everything from classics, such as Green Eggs and Ham and The Hardy Boys series to Frank Worrell (ATDP faculty director and GSE Professor) favorite, Ender’s Game, or a recent bestseller, Freakonomics.

The list is available online (http://virtualatdp.berkeley.edu/newsletter/fall08/readingrecs.html), and ConnectEd readers are encouraged to submit titles of their favorite books for young people along with brief annotations to Lloyd Nebres at lloyd@berkeley.edu.

The eARly ShOw wiTh leON leDeRMANPhysics Nobelist Leon Lederman led a roundtable discussion with Professor Marcia Linn and EMST students in October in Tolman Hall, then led a panel discussion on the future of science education, which was co-sponsored by the School of Education at Dwinelle Hall.

Steven Cohen

Columbia University Provost Claude Steele, left, and GSE alumnus and Oakland Superintendent Tony Smith spoke to huge gatherings at the Education/Psychology Library in 2009.

Steven Cohen

Steven Cohen

ChANGiNG OF The BARDSAlameda County Schools Superintendent Sheila Jordan and GSE Dean David Pearson were among the many speakers at Pauley Ballroom on June 5 to pay tribute to Bay Area Writing Project Director Carol Tateishi on her retirement after 19 years. Adela Arriaga and Betina Hsieh are the new co-directors, and GSE Professor Sarah Freedman is the new faculty director of the Bay Area Writing Project.

Steven Cohen

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JOYCE MOvES ONLong-time staff member Joyce Burks retired from the Graduate School of Education on July 1.

Hired by then-Director of Teacher Education Jim Stone in 1967, Burks worked in the teacher education program for many years. She later served with Jim Gray as the Bay Area Writing Project’s first staff assistant and with acting Deans Robert Ruddell, Dale Tillery and Geraldine Clifford before moving permanently to the Dean’s Office under Bernard Gifford. She stayed on with Deans Bill Rohwer, Gene Garcia and David Pearson.

Burks says that she had a “good run” working with and meeting many interesting people. She especially enjoyed the camaraderie of the staff, students, faculty and alumni, and expressed special gratitude to Pearson for helping make her last years in Tolman “pleasant, enjoyable and professionally rewarding."

“Joyce was the ‘real’ mentor to a long succession of Deans and I was lucky to be the last ‘mentee,’ ” says Pearson. “She saved me from a lot of embarrassing moments of potential ignorance, and had a lot of good advice, especially when it came to dealing with people. But then, Joyce was, and still is, the ultimate people person.”

liGhT TheiR FiRe GSE Assistant Professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi gave the Homecoming Faculty Seminar, “Igniting the ‘Public’ in Public Education,” on Saturday, October 3 at Alumni House. School of Education alumni and friends gathered for a breakfast before the timely talk on what makes UC Berkeley public, as well as what opportunities and responsibilities that entails for its students, families, graduates and faculty. The intrepid professor, who was awarded the campus American Cultures Innovations in Teaching Award last April, also spoke at a public forum, “American Cultures: From Concept to Classroom,” held in May at UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement Café at Moffitt Library this spring. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and two students from Seyer-Ochi’s class also spoke.

Joyce Burks with Pat Behring, left.

whAT AN OuTFiT! ConnectEd editor Steven Cohen received the Best Article of the Year Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education's (CASE) District VII for last year’s feature, “Urban Outfitters,” about GSE professional program graduates. Learning Without Limits Elementary School (LWL)second-grade teacher Malana Willis (’07), pictured above with LWL students in last year’s cover story, and seven other Developmental Teacher Education (DTE) graduates continue to make good progress at the Oakland school, moving a greater percentage of students from “below benchmark” to “approaching benchmark” than any other school in the Oakland Unified School District. LWL now has at least one DTE graduate at every grade level. And Leo Fuchs, the school’s principal, is a Principal Leadership Institute alumnus.

Steven Cohen

Peg Skorpinski

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schoolnews

After nine years as Dean of the Graduate School of Education — and 41years as a faculty member in higher education — P. David Pearson will step down from the GSE deanship effective June 30, 2010.

“Before I retire, I’d like to attend to some unfinished business in my research and writing agenda — science and literacy, assessment, a new history of reading curriculum and pedagogy,” says Pearson. “I also look forward to spending more time with my doctoral advisees.”

Another order of business before he retires: his very first sabbatical. “A little personal space to decompress after two especially challenging years will be welcome,” he says.

During Pearson’s watch, the next generation of GSE faculty was recruited, an intellectually and ethnically diverse cohort including Dor Abrahamson, Cynthia Coburn, Randi Engle, Lisa García Bedolla, Zeus Leonardo, Rick Mintrop, Na’ilah Nasir, Xiaoxia Newton, Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, Janelle Scott, Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Laura Sterponi, Tina Trujillo and Frank Worrell.

“Add their talent, accomplishments and world-class reputations to that of our more experienced faculty and you see a recipe for success for our future,” says Pearson.

Looking back on his tenure as Dean, Pearson says that alongside faculty recruitment, he is most proud of GSE’s strong connections with Bay Area schools.

“Grads of our professional degree programs are in high demand,” says Pearson. “The School’s professional development efforts and research partnerships with San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified and the other large districts are mutually beneficial. We incorporate what we learn from our K–12 colleagues into university teaching and research that is increasingly rich and relevant.”

Throughout nearly a decade, Pearson says he has strived to achieve a balance between the School’s obligations to professional education and preparing the next generation of educational scholars, and he says he likes the mix of programs. “We are about 50/50 in research and professional degrees,” he says.

He is also happy with the themes the School chose in its last campus review — the big ideas to guide its future efforts: diversity and equity, learning

Spotlight Dean to Step Down next Year

Pearson makes a point to his advisee, vicki Benson Griffo.

in complex environments, and focusing the lens of research on improving professional practice. “What better themes for a school of education in our nation’s leading public university?” he asks.

Pearson also mentions working with Carol Liu, Miranda Heller and Lynn Wendell to establish and develop a GSE Advisory Board as a highlight. “It’s great to have a group of knowledgeable, engaged individuals to work with as we run our academic and outreach programs. The Advisory Board members are important ambassadors for us.”

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer has begun the process of identifying a new Dean. Pearson says that his successor will face the challenge of developing a new financial model to maintain the School’s excellence and diversity. More fundraising will be required, as well as expanding the School’s presence as a progressive force to improve public education in the Bay Area and California.

“We need a center or institute to organize and house all our efforts in the schools, one that champions both research and service through professional development. We need to establish ourselves as the “go-to” place for our public school partners,” says Pearson.

Among Pearson’s colleagues who expressed appreciation for his commitment to the School is Professor Judith Warren Little.

“David’s spirit of intellectual and personal generosity has helped create strong community in the School of Education, and his commitments to the GSE mission have made him a staunch promoter and advocate of the School,” says Little, the Carol Liu Professor of Education Policy. “Like others, we are experiencing difficult economic times, but he will leave us well positioned to move forward.”

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By MArGUErITE JUDSOn and ADAM PArkEr Center for Educational Partnerships

CAL Prep, UC Berkeley’s public charter school now entering its fifth year, attained a 2009 Academic Performance Index (API) score of 820, up 170 points from 2006, when students first took the state tests in English and Math. The score represents phenomenal growth in a short time, a success magnified by the fact that the school’s population is made up almost entirely of students from groups underrepresented in higher education.

Pointing to a student-made banner emblazoned with the number 820, CAL Prep junior Jorge Lopez crowed, “Every year we get better!” Lopez credits his (very challenging) sophomore English teacher, Mary Dillman, with igniting his own passion for learning.

All CAL Prep eighth-grade students take Algebra I, and 70 percent of CAL Prep eighth graders scored Proficient or Advanced in Algebra I on statewide tests in 2009, well above California’s average for students in eighth or ninth grade.

But test scores are only one indicator of success. “What makes CAL Prep unique is its engagement with research

performed by Berkeley faculty and graduate students and its willingness to experiment and find new ways to improve student achievement,” says Professor Frank Worrell, faculty director and co-chair of UC Berkeley’s Faculty Committee on the Early College Initiative.

Adds CAL Prep Principal Megan Reed, “CAL Prep has always been a Petri dish in which we are cultivating new things every day.”

As an example, Angelica Stacy, assistant vice provost for faculty equity and professor of Chemistry, is working with CAL Prep to implement a chemistry curriculum designed to support learning by inquiry, not rote memorization. Throughout Stacy’s innovative lessons, students are engaged in experimentation and encouraged to hypothesize and test their ideas.

For example, an experiment turns copper to a gold color. How,

teachers inquire, can students tell if they have made real gold? Alchemy — or “Can copper be turned into gold?” — becomes the lens that focuses students on topics like defining matter, understanding atoms and chemical bonds.

Rhona Weinstein, professor in the graduate program in Psychology, is working with CAL Prep on the development and evaluation of “advisories,” short discussion courses about important themes — such as stereotyping, goal setting, community building and conflict resolution — that take place outside of the usual classroom structure. While advisories are increasingly popular in secondary schools, little is known about their effect on student success. Analyzing the mixed-grade, mixed-gender advisories from 2006–07, Professor Weinstein discovered that while teachers were particularly interested in using advisories for skill development and imparting academic strategies, students were most engaged by discussing peer-group relationships, emotional development and community issues. They also provided insight into what made certain teachers effective advisory leaders.

Living proof of CAL Prep’s gains is Alana Banks, a 10th grader who has been at the school since it opened its doors. Banks says that she started CAL Prep with modest expectations but now feels ready to take on the world. “Before I got to CAL Prep, I never thought about science,” says Banks. “Now I think of myself as a scientist.” This formerly shy student is now a member of the debate team and student body president.

Principal Reed emphasizes the importance of a school community that cares for and understands one another. “We realize that students have to feel safe physically and emotionally to be productive,” she says. Through rigorous staff training, student life skills programs, such as advisories, and a clear positive and negative consequences system, they are achieving that goal.

“At my old school, kids hung out with their own,” says CAL Prep transfer student Sania Mahmoud, now in her second year. “At Cal Prep, we are like a family.”

CAL Prep Posts Big Gains

“Before I got to CAL Prep, I never thought about

science. now, I think of myself as a scientist.”

Student Body President Alana Banks, left, with Principal Megan Reed

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schoolnews

In 2010 the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) turned 10 with 346 of its graduates working as teacher-leaders, coaches, administrators or district office leaders in Bay Area public schools — a prime reason why Chancellor Robert Birgeneau regularly cites the PLI as a flagship example of the University’s public service mission.

Plans are afoot for a fête to celebrate the decade milestone at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum on February 10.

The Principal Leadership Institute is a “home-grown” program, in which urban teachers choose to take on leadership roles in order to increase their impact in our schools; they come from the communities in which they teach and live.

A remarkable 97 percent of PLI graduates continue to work in education leadership positions, a record directly linked to the strong commitment to social justice that is the foundation of the program. The close relationship between principal and community that PLI leaders build helps ensure the climate of trust and mutual respect necessary to build durable outcomes for students and adults.

While API ratings are only one indicator of school and student success, PLI leaders are becoming recognized for their ability to raise scores in challenging environments. At the 2009 Oakland Unified School District Expect Success awards for exemplary leadership, five of the 13 awardees were PLI graduates. In addition, PLI alumni lead the four Oakland schools that showed the greatest API gains in 2008–09 and two that received School Site Team Excellence Awards. These leaders are recognized for developing a shared vision of academic excellence and sustaining a school-wide focus on student achievement.

First Lady Michelle Obama is flanked by Bret harte elementary School Principal vidrale Franklin (PLI Cohort 2) and Ben Klaus (PLI Cohort 10) in San Francisco while constructing a school playground for the President’s United We Serve Initiative.

Principal Leadership institute Celebrates 10 Years

Currently 26 percent of Oakland elementary principals and 32 percent of San Francisco site leaders are PLI graduates. At Oakland’s Futures Elementary, where 70 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch, API scores jumped 118 points, the biggest gain in the District and one of the largest growth rates in the state.

“We had the opportunity to redesign a school that had inspired little hope or trust and focused on improving relationships with the children and the community,” explains Futures Principal Steven Daubenspeck (PLI Cohort 5). “Relational trust plays a big role in our theory of action, as does a commitment to equity on the part of our teachers and a willingness to meet children where they are.”

According to PLI Academic Coordinator Lynda Tredway, strong leaders hold the key to transforming schools, especially those that serve the most vulnerable youth, because “they engage all adults in change efforts that respond collectively to the assets and challenges in schools and communities.”

The Principal Leadership Institute is the anchor program of UC Berkeley’s Leadership Connection for Educational Justice, a comprehensive leadership development program for supporting and sustaining exemplary school leaders throughout their careers.

PLI and the Leadership Connection could not celebrate their success without the extraordinary long-term commitment of philanthropist Kenneth E. Behring to provide scholarships for aspiring school leaders. PLI is exceptional in that its students and graduates contribute financially to build an endowment for future scholarship support. The February 10 celebration at Blackhawk Museum is also an impetus for challenging all PLI graduates to contribute to the scholarship fund.

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Faced with unprecedented cuts in its state funding, the School of Education has suspended admission for this year to its highly regarded elementary teacher preparation program, Developmental Teacher Education (DTE).

Founded in 1980 as an experimental two-year program providing new teachers with a strong background in child development, DTE has often been cited nationally as an exemplary program, and has graduated 20-25 students per year through much of its history.

While admissions to DTE are suspended for the 2010 school year, a faculty committee will meet to consider how the program might be redesigned in light of the intellectual resources that are available among School of Education faculty, as well as the diminished fiscal resources that are expected in the future.

“We will work to develop a new model that preserves the elements that made DTE exemplary,” says Dean David Pearson. Berkeley’s other teaching credential programs, Masters and Credential in Science and Math Education (MACSME) and Multicultural Urban Secondary English Education (MUSE) will both continue in the coming year with reduced funding.

While Berkeley’s credential programs are all relatively small, they have consistently provided a cadre of deeply committed teacher-leaders. “Our graduates choose to work in the toughest schools, stay in the field, and often move into school or district leadership or university faculty posts,” says Pearson.

A recent survey of DTE graduates from 1986–2009 showed that 94 percent are still working in the field of education — 78 percent work directly in schools; 10 percent work in other aspects of education, including district-level administration; and 7 percent have gone on to doctoral work and faculty positions in education.

“Our high-quality teacher preparation programs are the sort that UC Berkeley should provide,” says Dean Pearson, who served as chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing in 2008, “but we may be forced to consider alternative delivery systems.”

The value of a solid foundation in the study of child development is recognized by the many DTE graduates working in California schools and by teacher educators at other institutions, according to Professor Emeritus and DTE co-founder Paul Ammon.

“DTE provided me a forum to establish a strong foundation for the craft of teaching,” says 2006 DTE graduate Sumita Soni, a fifth-grade teacher in Los Angeles. “Most teachers I meet have not had the opportunity to think through pedagogical theories or pressing issues related to urban education. Because of DTE, I approach my work as a teacher from the position of teacher-researcher. Every teacher should be given the gift of a strong graduate program that allows him or her to develop a strong intellect with regard to teaching.”

“For all of these programs, we need to develop new financial models that recognize the diminished role of the state and increased burdens on students,” says Pearson. “But I’m optimistic. My wildest hope is that we will expand into social studies!”

Pearson says that he is looking forward to returning to full strength, with strengthened programs for MACSME and MUSE and a new version of DTE in a year or two.

And Ammon echoes the call: “We look forward to launching a new effort to provide aspiring teachers with the preparation that is needed to gain a deep and useful understanding of how children learn.”

Pearson: “We need to develop new financial models that recognize the diminished role of the state and increased burdens on students.”

GSE Budget CrunchedDevelopmental Teacher education on hiatus

David Schmitz

Web Extra View Mahiri’s recent interviews and presentations at gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/jmahiri/jmahiri.html

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Increasingly, educators must combine the ability to make human connections with mastery of the new media that dominate our digital age. Associate Professor Jabari Mahiri, Chair of the Language and Literacy, Society and Culture area, balances these complementary attributes, respecting all sources of student experience, be they hip hop or futbol.

Mahiri’s two forthcoming books, Digital Tools in Urban Schools: Mediating a Remix of Learning (University of Michigan Press) and Out of Bounds: When Scholarship Athletes Become Academic Scholars (Peter Lang), written with Derek Van Rheenen, who directs UC Berkeley’s Athletes and Academic Achievement Program as well as the Athletic Study Center, highlight strands of inquiry that have persisted in Mahiri’s teaching and research throughout 16 years at Berkeley.

A former Chicago high school English teacher and a Senior Scholar for the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, Mahiri leads the TEACH Project (Technology, Equity, And Culture in High-performing schools), a research initiative that collaborates with urban school districts and community partners on teacher professional development, student achievement and educational equity.

For the past six years, Mahiri and his team have focused on their own backyard, urban schools in the Bay Area. In the TEACH project that is the focus of Digital Tools, they presented two 90-minute teacher professional development sessions per month for an entire school year at a public high school. The sessions were designed to increase teachers’ competence and confidence using tools such as podcasts; blogs; digital photography, video and music; Google maps; GarageBand; and virtual environments such as Teen Second Life.

“These tools, which are embraced by some of the nation’s top universities, have the power to transform the learning dynamic in secondary school,” says Mahiri. “Students and teachers can reverse roles and take on virtual identities that level out and enliven the learning process.

“New media permeates the lives of young people and it can bring new life to learning,” Mahiri notes. “We must define its place for learning in schools, or watch it take the place of schools.”

Out of Bounds, dedicated to the late Herb Simons (see page 9), chronicles the experiences of six informants over a 12-year span, starting when they were all graduate students advised by Mahiri (one was Tony Smith, see page 12). The six informants, who represent diverse dimensions of gender, race and class, were all highly successful scholarship athletes who went on to become prolific scholars. Mahiri examines the interconnections among factors in their achievement, including the significant people and critical events in their social and emotional lives that supported their struggle for academic identity.

Ultimately, Out of Bounds argues for a transformation of the teaching/learning dynamic from one where the teacher is the conduit through which all learning occurs in the classroom to one that positions the teacher more as a coach to facilitate students learning with and through each other. Students become the primary players in the game of learning, and teachers, like coaches, build upon their individual backgrounds, skills and talents and blend them in processes of fluid learning for the entire class.

Mahiri practices what he preaches. He received UC Berkeley’s Leon Henkin Citation for Distinguished Service in 2006 for exceptional commitment to the educational development of students from groups who are underrepresented in the academy. For his efforts to advance equitable access to education and research that focuses on inequalities and public service that address the needs of California’s diverse population, Mahiri received the Chancellor’s Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence in 2007.

faculty

Jabari Mahiri Boundless Classrooms

Spotlight

Dave Schm

itz

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NORTON GRuBB: ON The MONey The release of W. Norton Grubb’s latest book, The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity comes at a critical time, as public schools struggle with limited funds, raised accountability demands and a myriad of other issues — one reason that the GSE Professor’s refreshing approach to school resources has captured the interest of so many in media and education circles.

Refreshingly, GSE’s David Gardner Chair in Higher Education and Faculty Coordinator of the Principal Leadership Institute does not prescribe lowering expectations or throwing more money at the problem. He recognizes that “dollar bills don't educate kids.”

Rather, Grubb argues for a different approach to schooling: “to implement the many interconnected elements necessary for a complex and constructivist approach, and to provide both the complex array of school resources and the non-educational policies necessary” for effective and equitable schools.

“My favorite phrase in this book is that ‘money is necessary but not sufficient,’” says Grubb. While acknowledging that

we waste a great deal of money in schools, Grubb also identifies several necessary resources that improve student learning outcomes, such as higher teacher salaries.

For background and ordering information, visit http://www.russellsage.org/publications/books/090112.965779

Web Extras Listen to Professor Grubb talk about his book with host Michael Krasny

on Forum on KQED FM: “Education and ‘The Money Myth’” at www.kqed.org/epArchive/R905051000, and at his special GSE presentation on 9/23/09: gse.berkeley.edu/admin/publications/news/audiofiles/audiofiles.html

Winter 2009 9

heRe TODAy, GONe TAMAle

Professor emeritus Lily Wong Fillmore

has cooked up 75,000 tamales and

staged a tamalada, or tamale-making

party, for 55 consecutive Christmas

eves. The whole story — from eating

her first tamale in Watsonville at age

eight, appeared in the november 1

food section of the SF Chronicle.

iN MeMORiAM: HErbErt DaviS SiMONS, 1937–2009

Herbert “Herb” D. Simons, a pioneer in the academic study of school and sports and a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, died of chronic lymphocytic leukemia on July 1, 2009. He was 72 years old.

Simons was founding director of UC Berkeley's Athletes and Academic Achievement Program (AAA), a master’s program in the Graduate School of Education. He was also instrumental in the development of the Athletic Study Center (ASC), an on-campus support service for student-athletes launched in 1984 that offers tutoring and academic advising.

The ASC is now considered a model program for collegiate student-athletes and a significant reason for UC Berkeley’s improved academic performance through graduation rates, high scores on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Academic Progress Reports and retention of student-athletes.

Simons started his Athletes and Academic Achievement program with the similar goal of helping student-athletes improve their academic performance and get more out of their Cal education.

“Until Athletes and Academic Achievement, there was no program looking in a theoretical and intellectual way at the intersections of school and sport,” said Derek Van Rheenen, who now directs AAA as well as the Athletic Study Center. “This was his love. This was his passion,” said Van Rheenen of Simons.

Simons came to Berkeley in 1970 and became an associate professor in 1974 and professor emeritus in 2006. During his long tenure at GSE, he directed the M.A. Program in Reading Disability and the Advanced Reading and Language Leadership Program; chaired the Language, Literacy, Society & Culture area; authored or co-authored several research papers and reports; and was an advisor to a number of Ph.D. graduates in reading and literacy research.

Simons is survived by Elizabeth (Liz) Simons, his wife of 43 years; his daughter Rachel of Santa Barbara, California; son Daniel of El Cerrito; and two granddaughters.

Donations in Simons’ memory may be made online (https://givetocal.berkeley.edu/egiving/index.cfm?Fund=FM8288000) to the Herb Simons Fund for Athletes and Education for students in the Athletes and Academic Achievement program. For more information, please call GSE's Development Office at 510/643-9784.

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irenka Dominguez-Pareto Giving voice

Nearly a decade after earning advanced degrees in psychology, speech therapy and sign language, while working as a junior researcher and a psychologist in Barcelona, Spain, Irenka Dominguez-Pareto set her sights on the United States to extend her studies.

“It seems like I collect degrees, but I always felt like I needed to learn more, so I kept working and studying,” she says in Catalan-flavored English, one of four languages Dominguez-Pareto speaks fluently. “I always thought being a psychologist and working with children was a complex and challenging task, and I knew I had to do more.”

So Domínguez-Pareto coupled her insatiable love of learning with a prestigious La Caixa Fellowship in 2006, earning an all-expenses paid ticket for additional graduate studies in the U.S. Effectively, the Fellowship meant that she could go to any research university in the U.S. After being accepted at Harvard, Columbia and other schools, she settled on UC Berkeley.

“I’m a very ideological person and Berkeley fit more with the style of person I am,” she says. “It’s, first of all, a public school and has the tradition of being more open-minded and interdisciplinary.”

Domínguez-Pareto has taken full advantage of interdisciplinary offerings, which began in her first semester with an “eye-opening”

mix of Human Development program courses and Associate Professor Patricia Baquedano-López’s Language Socialization class, and continued with courses in sociology and the creation of an interdisciplinary study group focused on families.

Since then, the doctoral candidate in Human Development has worked as a graduate student instructor and as an integral part of a research team with Adjunct Professor Susan Holloway, working in a survey study exploring beliefs and social support of families with children with cognitive disabilities. She is also busy and excited with the debut issue of the Berkeley Review of Education (see next page) the peer-reviewed online journal that she and fellow GSE students founded.

But Domínguez-Pareto’s primary focus has been on the interplay between cognition, culture and language, which she applies to family studies in her own research, with Holloway and Baquedano-López as her advisors. GSE professor Geoff Saxe and Sociology Professor Barrie Thorne round out her dissertation committee.

In September, Domínguez-Pareto earned special recognition for her work when she was awarded a highly competitive UC MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant, which will fund her dissertation development for two years. The research focuses on Mexican mothers of children with cognitive disabilities who organize and participate in support and advocacy groups in the Bay Area, and examines their experiences, discourse practices and learning processes.

“I want to give voice to a group that is not usually seen or heard, especially low-income Latino mothers with little formal education or career, who are active advocates,” says Domínguez-Pareto, who hopes the research will contribute to advancing the literature on family, immigration and culture.

“These mothers do amazing things and learn on the go about disabilities, about special intervention practices… This is a type of professional learning that took me four years of training to get! I really wonder what their experience is like? How does their learning happen? And how it is shared with other members of their families?”

If past is prelude, Domínguez-Pareto will discover some answers.

By STEvEN CoHEN

“I’m a very ideological person and Berkeley fit more with the style of person I am.”

students

Spotlight

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STANDOuTS RiSe AT ChANCellOR’S PubliC SErviCE awarDS

Students with close ties to the Graduate School of Education received three of 11 Chancellor’s Public Service Awards at a campus ceremony in their honor in April. Two graduate students were recognized with Civic Engagement awards: Paula Argentieri, a doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Studies, who served as the lead graduate student instructor and coordinator for Education 190, the core class for education minors, for the past 14 semesters; and Nilofar Sami, from the psychology department, who was recognized for her volunteer work on behalf of CAL Prep (see page 7).

Two undergraduate minors in education were also selected. Alejandro Velez, a graduating senior in the Haas School of Business, received the Mather Good Citizen Award. Velez founded the SAGE Project, a one-on-one mentorship program in Berkeley and Oakland schools. Renee Garcia-Tolman, from the Department of Ethnic Studies, received the Undergraduate Award for Civic Engagement for her work with Berkeley Scholars to CAL.

STuDeNT hONORSArya and willow Sussex Mata were awarded 2009–10 Fulbright Fellowships to further their studies in two european countries. Arya is working on a science education project that spans seven different european countries at the University of Oslo. Sussex Mata, a Policy, Organization, Measurement, and evaluation doctoral candidate, won her Fulbright award to study school policy and immigrant incorporation in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain.

Jeremy Bearer-Friend, a first-year doctoral student in POMe, was selected to receive a 2009 national Science Foundation (nSF) Graduate Research Fellowship award, a three-year, $30,000 per annum fellowship. The Brown University alumnus plans to research the political environment of education policymaking. his current work focuses on vocational education and reentry planning for formerly incarcerated adults.

Jennifer Chiu and Kevin McElhaney, two students working in professor Marcia Linn’s TeLS (Technology enhanced Learning in Science) research group, have won Spencer Dissertation Fellowships for Research Related to education for the 2009-2010 academic year. Only 20 of approximately 600 applicants were selected for the Spencer Fellowships, which come with a $25,000 award.

Kathryn Zamora-Moeller, a doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Studies, has received an nSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant as well as a 2009–10 Fulbright-hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award. The grants will support Zamora-Moeller’s dissertation research.

Six School of education doctoral candidates earned outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) awards for 2008–09: Liliana Aguas, Developmental Teacher education/Cognition and Development; and Diana Arya, thao Duong, Betina Hsieh, nirali Jani and Kimberly Vinall, Language and Literacy, Society and Culture.

Winter 2009 11

Paula Argentieri with her education190 supporters at the Public Service Awards

laNguagE StuDENtS HavE a Fit

“Found in Translation” (http://foundintranslation.berkeley.edu), the Berkeley Language Center’s community blog, was featured in a Berkeley NewsCenter article on blogging at Berkeley, (“Berkeley Scholars’ Adventures in the Blogosphere”). Comprised of posts by students and faculty reflecting on their experiences in language, culture, identity and media, Found in Translation (FIT) has featured writing by several GSE student authors, including Dave Malinowski, Usree Bhattacharya, Youki Terada, Aaminah Muhammad Norris and Diana Arya (see contributor profiles on the FIT site). In the two-plus years since its creation, more than 40 individuals have contributed approximately 500 posts to the blog. Registration is open and contributions in all genres and languages are welcome. Contact: foundintranslation.admin@gmail.com.

Peg Skorpinski

GSI Award winners, from left, Thao Duong, Liliana Aguas, Diana Arya, Betina hsieh and Kimberly vinall. not pictured: nirali Jani.

JOuRNAl TO DeBuT iN JANuARyThe Berkeley Review of Education, the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal edited by GSE students, is slated to debut online (http://escholarship.org/uc/ucbgse) in January 2010. The journal will publish research and theory from senior and emerging scholars, practitioners and policymakers, with the aim of being representative of the diverse scholarship and interests as well as methodological and theoretical approaches to studying learning, development, education and policy.

Steven Cohen

12 connected

You earned impressive credentials at GSE and Cal. what is it

about your GSE experience that might have been overlooked

and may have helped inform your thinking?

People don’t mention that I got a minor in education and a lot of the political dimensions to my thinking were influenced by [GSE Professor Emeritus] John Hurst. He’s just so remarkably humble and thorough in his analysis and very conscious that the reason we should be educators is to unleash the unique gifts and talents and potential of every child in the system. I think that his ability to articulate the fundamentals of democracy, and that every child deserves a free quality public education is really at the core of a democratic ideal. It had a huge influence on me.

were there other professors who influenced you?

Glynda Hull really inspired me and others to follow our passions and then be relentless in pursuit of them. [The late] Herb Simons (see page 9) was also a big influence. I really wanted to create this course for student athletes and being able to think about what the intersection of sport and higher education looked like and then designing “The Introduction to Sports in Society” course

with [Athletes and Academic Achievement Director] Derek Van Rheenen with Herb’s backing and sponsorship was really transformative and important. Timing is everything. [UC Berkeley Professor of Education and Geography] Jean Lave was essential to my theoretical development and then [GSE Associate Professor] Jabari [Mahiri’s] mentoring and teaching helped bring my passion, practical experiences and theory to a fine point. So I’m obviously deeply shaped by the experience that I had in the GSE.

You have an unusual background for a superintendent.

[San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent] Carlos

Garcia has even called it “unorthodox,” but it sounds so

seamless now.

It may sound unorthodox, but I think we spend a lot of our lives working to bring it all together, you know. Who are we in relationship to others? Who are we in relationship to ourselves? Who are we in relationship to our work? When those moments happen that you realize what your work is, those are pretty special moments. I was a football player and I got hurt a couple of times and I knew that I had to figure out what to do after football. I was in Green Bay and San Francisco and I thought I was going to be an attorney, and that really didn’t speak to me. It was really Jo Baker, who was at the time directing the [UC Berkeley] Athletic Study Center, who said to me, “ ‘You know, I don’t know what you don’t get. You’re a teacher. You help people understand things, whether it’s your teammates, whether you’re tutoring at Oakland Tech or wherever. This is kind of who you are.’ ” It was one of those moments where I got it. So I got an education and it’s really been the key to my personal and professional happiness.

You have a daughter in the Oakland schools. Does that give

you a different window or perspective in your office?

Yeah, absolutely. I could not have anticipated how energizing it would be to be the superintendent at home. I dropped my daughter off this morning and people were asking me things about what they can do, how they can get involved, sharing unfortunate stories from other schools and they heard this happened to a friend of theirs. People that I played football with 25 years ago have kids in our schools both with amazing, extraordinary experiences and things that I just think are unconscionable. There’s a personal accountability and responsibility that is so humbling and unbelievably exciting, to be responsible for the support and well- being of the kids in Oakland and to make sure that everybody has the same high-quality experience that my daughter has.

Mr. Smith Goes to Oakland An Interview with Oakland Schools Superintendent Tony Smith

Q&A

By STEvEN CoHEN

GSe alumnus Tony Smith, the new superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District, became OUSD’s first permanent, locally chosen leader since the 2003 state takeover of the District. After receiving his B.A. in english from UC Berkeley and his M.A. and Ph.D. in GSe’s Language, Literacy, and Culture area in 1993 and 2002, respectively, Smith became superintendent of emery Unified, where he led the 800-student district out of a state takeover as it emerged from state receivership in 2004. he was appointed Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice for San Francisco Unified School District in 2007. The former Cal football captain was honored with the 2008 California Alumni Association’s Mark Bingham Award for excellence in Achievement by a young Alumnus.

Web Extra View Smith’s presentation to

the Graduate School of Education on October 19 at gse.berkeley.edu/movies/smith.html

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the four schools that made the greatest APi gains in 2009 are

all headed by Principal Leadership institute (PLi) graduates.

Does this influence you as you seek to attract more talented

administrators to Oakland Unified?

Yes. I think if you look at what [PLI Coordinator] Lynda [Tredway] has done. She is a tireless advocate for the kind of leadership necessary to create systems of care and high-quality education for every child, and particularly those kids who have been least well served. I think what PLI is doing is uncommon in the sense of really deeply supporting practitioners to get a theoretical consciousness and practice, the tools and a real understanding of the logistics of the job, at the same time getting a sense of a bigger theoretical framework to actually make informed decisions to alter outcomes. I really like how PLI balances and blends those elements.

what values do you prioritize in your leadership and

management of the OUSD fiscal challenges? How will you

align your spending with those values, check to ensure

those values are represented in the budget and ensure the

community is on board with those values and alignment?

I think it’s crucial that you establish core priorities and don’t allow yourself to be driven just simply by the cuts. So I say clarify your priorities, set a process that includes a whole bunch of folks in discussing how you make those and then be really creative in how you fund it. There are three big things as we go forward right now in Oakland: Ensuring that every single child in Oakland, regardless of school, neighborhood, anywhere, has access to, and the opportunity to be supported by, high-quality instruction. That safety and school climate are more important than ever and that the conditions of respect, love and caring inside of schools needs to be fostered. Then third, that we must have high-quality academic literacy that supports college and career readiness. I’m talking about the critical literacies necessary to enter professional fields. I think there is a huge focus on early literacy, which is obviously a must-do. However, I’m in too many high schools where young people are not able to articulate why they want to do something; they don’t have cogent sentence structure. Those three big buckets will drive decision making about what I advocate for in terms of our budget.

You were quoted in a recent Oakland Tribune article, asking

“what is it going to take for us to specifically focus on the

needs of African-American children and their families?” i’ll

ask the same question.

First, we have to acknowledge that the system is working well for white kids. There’s a sense of celebration and excitement and the Academic Performance Index is at an aggregate score of over 900 for white students in Oakland and far outpacing the state. We obviously have massive work to do when you look at the performance of African American and Latino students. There’s evidence that things are getting better. However, we have deep, deep historic patterns that have to be examined. We have clearly not figured out how to engage and support and accelerate the learning of African-American children in our schools and we need to put this front and center if we’re going to see the kind of Oakland that we all want to live in. Obviously, culturally relevant pedagogy, engaging and supporting families and really reaching out are all important steps.

“Social justice has to be at the heart of high-quality public education because I refuse to preside over the status quo.”

Laur

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Smith walks the hallway with Frick Middle School Principal Jerome Gourdine, a PLI graduate.

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A dozen grants of more than $1 million dollars are already on track, including five new ones that arrived this year (see boxes, page 15).

No matter their funding source, shape, size, or partners, the research projects are destined to make a positive public impact according to GSE Professor Alan Schoenfeld, an affiliated professor of mathematics.

“This is research for the public good,” Schoenfeld says. “All of it is aimed at the goals of improving learning for underserved and underrepresented students.”

In the wake of drastic cuts to the University of California, Schoenfeld countered in a Sacramento Bee newspaper commentary that these grants “have provided Cal with graduate student support, postdoctorate salaries and many other dependable resources. While it’s hard to quantify their exact fiscal impact, two of Schoenfeld’s recent grant-related activities — The Diversity in Mathematics Education (DiME) Center and Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) — produced two dozen Ph.D.s devoted to issues of diversity in mathematics education and diversity-related professional development in Berkeley and San Francisco schools.

“These are gifts that keep on giving because of their multiple impact,” Schoenfeld says, “ and more gifts are on the way.”

Professor Geoff Saxe and key strategic partners, including

Schoenfeld, have embarked on a five-year, $5 million grant that supports 15 fellowships a year to train exceptional researchers accepted to UC Berkeley’s doctoral programs in Education, SESAME (The Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education) and Psychology. Students will work in apprenticeships with faculty on projects such as Saxe’s “Teaching Fractions and Integers” research grant (see box next page), and participate in coursework, specialized workshops and colloquia keyed to the training grant’s focal themes.

“We’re at a well-leveraged intersection between the cognitive sciences, mathematics education and methodological skills, drawing on knowledge from across disciplines that are often segregated,” says Saxe. “Further, the apprenticeship aspect of the training is set in schools, offering immediate benefits to local districts and long-term benefits of sustained contributions of exemplary research geared for improving education in the nation.” Saxe is also directing a grant, with professors Hyman Bass and Deborah Ball at the University of Michigan, that develops a 20-lesson sequence on integers and fractions, and a teachers’ guide to lesson implementation that focuses on students’ mathematical thinking. They will also conduct empirical studies on student thinking and learning to inform lesson development, and obtain preliminary evidence of the efficacy of the lesson sequence.

Grant Central Math, Science Projects Bound by Public Purpose, Access

Several large science and mathematics education grants are flowing to and through the Cognition and Development area of the Graduate School of education and destined to reach targeted local urban schools.

Using an interactive visualization of climate change, students explore factors such as CO2 as part of the vISUAL research.

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Other Cognition and Development science education grants feature partnerships with K–12 schools to strengthen student learning across the Bay Area.

Professor Marcia Linn’s research is supported by five active National Science Foundation grants and includes strategic partners such as Ou Lydia Liu from Educational Testing Service (see profile, page 20), Concord Consortium President Emeritus Robert Tinker, and teachers and administrators in local schools. All projects are aimed at making science accessible to all learners by taking advantage of emergent technologies through a variety of learning materials and topics. Linn’s latest NSF grant, “Visualizing to Integrate Science Understanding for All Learners (VISUAL),” focuses on physical science topics and instruction, which often deter students because of their abstraction and complexity.

Linn says that the goal is to design and investigate how curriculum and assessment using dynamic, interactive scientific visualizations of complex phenomena can improve teaching and learning in science courses. The visualizations make unseen processes such as chemical reactions visible and to support virtual experiments about complex processes such as global climate change (see screen grab, previous page), airbag safety or home insulation.

“One of the things that we emphasize is alignment of the assessment, professional development and curriculum using a framework that rewards development of coherent ideas,” says Linn, who joined her GSE colleagues Schoenfeld, Saxe and Andrea diSessa as a member of the National Academy of Education in 2007.

Associate Professor Kathleen Metz, whose research project is based on recommendations from a new National Research Council Report on K–8 science learning, is using her $1 million grant to “reconceptualize” the underpinnings of evolution for second and third graders in two Alameda and Oakland schools.

“All of our projects in one way or another revolve around sense making — bringing science and mathematics into the schools in intelligent ways, to facilitate more meaningful and powerful learning,” Metz says, “but this [current] grant is focused more on the development of the instructional approach, the learning progression, the testing of the learning progression, the consideration of what is possible and under what conditions.”

Schoenfeld concurs with his science colleagues that the Cognition and Development grantees are all working on the same package. “We all agree that the only way to make systemic progress is to start with rich intellectual goals; align curriculum, assessment and professional development; and allow enough time for those to take hold.”

teaching Fractions and integers: the Development of research-Based instructional Practice

ProjEct DirEctor Professor Geoffrey Saxe (Principal Investigator); Co-Investigator, Associate Adjunct Professor Maryl Gearhart

FunDEr U.S. Department of education Institute of education Sciences

Amount/LEngth $1.5 million, four years

Visualizing to integrate Science Understanding for All Learners (ViSUAL)

ProjEct DirEctor Professor Marcia Linn

FunDEr national Science Foundation

Amount/LEngth $3.5 million, five years

College ready Mathematics Assessment

ProjEct DirEctor Professor Alan Schoenfeld

FunDEr Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Amount/LEngth $3.7 Million, two years

Classroom Practices that Lead to Student Proficiency with word Problems in Algebra

ProjEct DirEctor Professor Alan Schoenfeld

FunDEr national Science Foundation

Amount/LEngth $1 million, three years

Developing the Conceptual Underpinning of Evolution in Second and third Grade

ProjEct DirEctor Associate professor Kathleen Metz

FunDEr national Science Foundation

Amount/LEngth $1 million, three years

research in Cognition and Mathematics Education

ProjEct DirEctor Professor Geoffrey Saxe; Co-Director, Associate Professor na’ilah nasir

FunDEr U.S. Department of education Institute of education Sciences

Amount/LEngth $5 million, five years

Schoenfeld: “These are gifts that keep on giving because of their multiple impact. And more gifts are on the way.”

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The eastbay Collaborative for Underserved Children (eCUC), a university, school and community initiative led by GSe Professor Glynda hull, is ushering in an unprecedented investment in academic assistance and family literacy services to a group of east Bay students and families in high-poverty communities that lacked access to academic support and enrichment activities.

Aided by a $10.5 million, five-year 21st Century grant from the California Department of Education, the project is expected to reach approximately 1,800 K-8 students in a cohort of nine East Bay schools that include public, private, charter and religiously affiliated schools.

Consistent with its public service mission, the School of Education and its faculty will provide a

Digital Directions East Bay After-School Program Goes Global

variety of resources, including oversight, curriculum design, facilities and administrative support. GSE students and researchers will be involved in teaching, mentoring and program research. In addition, the project will leverage significant public and private support.

East Bay teachers, administrators, parents and students are joining community partners to design, implement and sustain the collaborative project, which will include academic instruction, tutoring and homework support to help students meet academic goals in core subjects. Enrichment activities will include drama, music, physical fitness, computer technology classes and digital media programs (digital poems, stories, videos and music).

Hull writes: “The goal of the ECUC partnership is to enable students to excel academically and acquire 21st century skills. In a global world, a premium is placed on new kinds of skills and knowledge: being able to communicate effectively and respectfully to diverse and distant audiences; to organize, analyze and deploy ever-growing amounts of information; to create, innovate and think unconventionally and collaboratively in order to solve complex and nuanced problems; to exercise judgment and responsibility; and to use the full range of technological tools in all of the above. 21st century skills and dispositions are critical if our students are to be prepared to compete for jobs in a global economy, but they will also help our students become effective and ethical citizens and position them more strongly to be authors of rewarding personal futures.”

KidnetOne such program is Professor Hull’s flagship digital media program,

“Kidnet,” an outgrowth of her work in Bay Area after-school programs over the past nine years. With funding support from the Spencer Foundation, Kidnet has evolved from a local to a global focus, as participants in Oakland now make cross cultural exchanges with youth in Norway, South Africa and India through a proprietary Internet-based social network known as SPACE2CRE8.

Youth in after-school Kidnet classes eagerly share digital projects that they author on SPACE2CRE8. The excitement of meeting and conversing with peers from other countries has been a powerful motivator for all participants, but particularly for those who have been excluded by the digital revolution up until now according to Professor Hull.

South African and Indian children who rarely used computers before have become the social network’s most prolific users — sneaking into school computer labs to make profile changes or check their friends’ pages during lunch time. Youth in Norway and the U.S. also look for opportunities to check profiles, post messages and chat with other kids.

“I get a chance to interact with other children and make new friends,” says Nita, an Indian student. “I really like that! I want to keep making new friends, keep making new friends… make the whole world my friend.”

An Oakland student named De’von says that he thinks Space2Cre8 should be a global model because it connects kids who can expand their worldviews. “It seems like everybody can say, ‘well I want to go to India or I want to go Asia,’ but if you go to this SPACE2CRE8 you can see how it is.”

An Oakland girl impresses GSe Professor and eCUC Director Glynda hull with her SPACE2CRE8 project, a cross-cultural digital media exchange.

Peg Skorpinski

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“21st century skills and dispositions are critical if our students are to be prepared to compete for jobs in a global economy, but they will also help our students become effective and ethical citizens.”

Dr. Mark Nelson, a GSE graduate, now an Assistant Professor in Singapore, assisted in designing the program to explore how children design their worlds using multiple resources available to them. GSE researchers are now examining how much can be learned communicating across language, cultural and ideological barriers employing a wide range of meaning-making capacities, including text, image, music and movies, and negotiating on- and off-line identities across these differences.

“This ability to try on and explore multiple points of view is going to be a powerful and important capacity we need to develop in the 21st century,” says Amy Stornaiuolo, Kidnet research coordinator and UC Berkeley doctoral candidate in Education, “and the Kidnet program is an ideal way to foster that capacity.”

Stornaiuolo and Stacy Marple, another Ph.D. candidate in Language, Literacy and Culture, have been involved in research on the Kidnet program since its inception. A global perspective is a critical component for all youth to develop according to Marple.

“As our daily experience becomes saturated with global elements, the ability to situate these elements in real experiences of others will become critical,” she says. “For all the kids engaged in this project, SPACE2CRE8 is an opportunity to break down assumptions of how others live through direct, computer-facilitated personal engagement and can become a first step into creating a grounded global perspective.”

The social network, with its wide range of communicative and

participatory capacities, seems ideal for fostering these globally situated perspectives across linguistic, cultural, geographical and ideological differences. Kids can express themselves through varied modes on the site: exchanging pictures, videos, text and music on each other’s walls, message boards, chat windows and group spaces.

“You can illustrate what you mean better with the stories because of the pictures,” says Deepa, an Indian student. “People will really understand because they can see how we live. Otherwise how will they understand?”

The opportunity to share photos and digital stories has been empowering for the youngsters, but the participants in India have made quite an impact on their peers through their digital stories. One of the indirect repercussions of sharing their stories on SPACE2CRE8 is that it has encouraged adults and youth alike to take an interest in issues related to women in India.

Says Hull, “Kidnet is certainly encouraging youth to make their marks on the world by developing a critical consciousness about their roles as social agents capable of producing powerful digital artifacts that have lasting effects on their global audiences.”

More information is available on the Eastbay Collaborative for Underserved Children’s website at http://ecuc.info.

UC Berkeley GSe eD140 mentor hai Tran, left, gets screen time with two Oakland students.

Connected editor Steven Cohen interviews GSe’s David Plank, executive director of Policy Analysis for California education (PACe); and W. norton Grubb, David Gardner Professor in higher education; faculty coordinator of the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI); and author of The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity.

Let’s start with you, norton. what is it that you think drives

your POME research students to help schools and society?

NORTON GRUBB: Most of our research students are really interested in issues of equity for public schools. That’s what most of them do dissertations on; that’s what most of them want to do when they move out of here. So in that sense, we’re trying to contribute to doing something about the very, very large inequalities in school achievement in California and our society in general.

Does the research get “lost in translation” on policy audiences

and do we have a role in ensuring that it doesn’t?

DAVID PLANK: Yes, it absolutely gests lost. On the other hand, PACE has a translation function where we take the academic research that our colleagues at Berkeley and elsewhere do and turn that into information that is useful for policy audiences. So it’s partly a literal translation function, taking academic papers and boiling them down to messages that are accessible and understandable for policy audiences. But it’s also a translation function in the sense that we really try to derive policy guidance from academic research.

How do you do that?

DP: Academics are trained to be cautious about drawing strong conclusions from their research, but policy audiences need strong conclusions. They need guidance as to what they should do or not do in the policy realm. A lot of research has clear implications for policy, but it’s not necessarily certified at the 95 percent level of confidence. So one of the things PACE does is work with our colleagues to say, “How can we make this useful for policy audiences?” rather than simply convincing them that the questions are as complicated as we know them to be.

So are you saying that you really have to train your research

students to speak in two languages?

DP: Exactly. There is a language of academic research, which is essential to the conduct of scientific inquiry that relies on

standards of proof, standards of confidence that are necessary to build the edifice of knowledge that we’re all concerned with. But there is another language, which most Americans, certainly most policymakers, speak, but which academics don’t. As academics we are very good, very, very good at training students to speak the language of academic research. And one of the things that PACE and organizations like us can do is to help them either learn a second language or communicate in that second language.

NG: That definitely includes writing more clearly, too.

How else do you help your students bridge the divide

between research and policy?

NG: We try to get our Principal Leadership Institute students and certainly our LEEP (Leadership for Educational Equity) students much more familiar with research — the procedures of research, what it can show and what it can’t show. So, for example, as part of their master’s project, PLI students work on a problem at their school that they have to figure out to make some improvements. In order to do that, they have to go to the literature to see what research says. So one of the things that distinguishes PLI students from other principals in training is that they are more research-oriented. They are more aware that there is a lot of work out there that they can turn to. And I believe that to be true of LEEP students as well.

Have you seen some progress in translating research into

practice at the state or local levels?

DP: Yes, a very clear example is the work that Norton and David Stern and others have been doing on high school reform under the flag of multiple pathways and differentiated opportunities for students, all of which lead to readiness for college and careers. I think that it’s a very powerful strategy for high school reform and the idea of multiple pathways is intuitively appealing to policymakers, but it has gained credibility and momentum because of the intellectual and empirical work done by researchers at GSE and elsewhere.

i assume these are long-term effects of what the University

and POME have done and can do?

NG: Yes. They didn’t happen overnight. The work that David [Stern] and I and a couple of other people did on ideas about integrating academic and vocational education started in the ’90s as part of a National Research Center that we had here at Berkeley. When we ended that Center in 2000, the kind of activity on multiple pathways that David [Plank] is talking about had not really started. It began more recently, and we see a number of districts around California that are taking their large anomic high schools and

18 connected

raising California Can we help the not-so-golden state of education rise again?

breaking them into smaller schools with themes or pathways in them. None of that would have happened, I don’t think, without our efforts in the ’90s, which really in some ways didn’t bear fruit for 10 or 15 years.

How about a more recent example of the impact of research?

DP: A specific example is PACE research investigating the effects of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) on student success in California. The research is excellent academic research, very sophisticated, highly quantitative research that shows that the CAHSEE exam has had no positive measurable effects on student achievement and a large negative impact on graduation rates that falls disproportionally on minority and female students. PACE has worked with Sean Reardon from Stanford and Michal Kurlaender from UC Davis to translate their research into a policy brief that’s readable for a lay audience, and bring that work to Sacramento where it has already begun to have a fairly profound impact on conversations about California’s assessment system and about whether we need an exit exam.

Let’s go to the federal level for a minute. i want to read the

first two paragraphs from a recent Ed Week article (“’race

to top’ Said to Lack Key Science,” Debra Viadero, 10/2/09).

“Among education researchers, one complaint about the U.S.

Department of Education under former President George w.

Bush was that it relentlessly promoted “scientific research in

education,” while at the same time endorsing some policies

that lacked solid research evidence… with recently published

draft guidelines for federal economic-stimulus money and title

i aid, critics are beginning to ask whether much has changed

under the Obama administration.”

NG: I think this is a fair criticism of the Obama administration. Our new Secretary of Education [Arne Duncan] seems to be supporting a couple of policies for which there is very little research support. For example, the jury is still out on the notion of merit pay for teachers, or on the effectiveness of charter schools, or for reconstituting schools, which in the Obama administration’s case means closing and re-opening schools. So some of the policies being promoted don’t have any research at all behind them.

DP: I think there is a very high level of credulity in the Obama administration about certain reform strategies as promising approaches to very difficult problems. I think the error that they are making is in defining a priori which strategies they prefer. I think the more promising approach, which they are also adopting with some of the money, is to let local districts and states decide what they are going to do with the money and then to examine whether that’s working or not. There are at least a couple of [federal] programs and perhaps more that really are going to encourage innovation in the education system and where that innovation is not specified in advance, where the administration doesn’t say, in effect, you have to open a charter school or you have to develop a new strategy for paying teachers.

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David Plank, left, and norton Grubb say that California education faces serious structural and financial problems that will require long-term solutions.

Web Extra In Part II of the video interview, Plank and Grubb address the short and long-term

barriers and solutions to improving California’s schools — from useful assessment and data systems, to stable governance and revenue structures — and Grubb talks about his latest book. The video can be viewed online at gse.berkeley.edu/movies/grubbplank.html

José Zavaleta

20 connected

alumni

Measurement, edited by Mark Wilson, and decided to send the GSE professor

an e-mail to find out about the Quantitative Methods and Evaluation

program here.

“I remember saying to myself ‘if he replies, I’ll apply,’ ” recalls Liu, who

eventually received Wilson’s reply, only there was nothing in it. “I thought

‘that’s weird, maybe he forgot to write in it, or more likely, maybe he wanted

to delete it but somehow hit the reply button instead.’ Either way, I took it as a

‘yes,’ applied and got in!”

After earning a master's and doctorate in quantitative methods in 2006, Liu

finally mentioned the e-mail omen to her advisor. Wilson laughed loudly at

the anecdote, perhaps realizing how important his (non) reply could be to a

prospective student.

Liu joined the Educational Testing Service (ETS) as a research scientist

directly after graduating. There, she has directed eight research projects

serving a range of testing programs including the Test of English as a Foreign

Language (ToEFL), the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP)

and National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). She is also

the lead scientist on a project investigating the construct validity of outcomes

assessment funded by the U.S. Department of Education. ETS honored Liu

with its Presidential Award in 2008 for her outstanding contributions to

research.

While far from her New Jersey office and home, UC Berkeley and the

Graduate School of Education remain very close to Liu’s heart and work.

“I spent a most wonderful time at Cal,” says Liu, who fondly remembers

exchanging ideas with fellow colleagues and students in the QME lab. “GSE

is a very diversified, dynamic community and offers a lot of opportunities to

think independently, learn and develop. I've met a lot of people who turned

out to be collaborators professionally and friends personally.”

She has worked closely with professor Marcia Linn since 2002, when Liu was

a graduate research assistant on Linn’s Technology Enhanced Learning in

Science (TELS) grant. Currently, Liu is a co-principal investigator and Linn is

principal investigator on two multi-million dollar five-year projects funded

by the National Science Foundation on science learning and assessment (see

page 14) — visualizing to Integrate Science Understanding for All Learners

(vISUAL) and Cumulative Learning using Embedded Assessment Results

(CLEAR).

And she still also collaborates with Wilson; they published four papers

together in measurement journals after Liu graduated. The two are waiting

for a response from the U.S. Department of Education on a grant proposal

on outcomes assessment in higher education. If funded, this project ensures

another four years of collaboration.

Funny how fulfilling a false start can be.

Many alumni have taken circuitous routes to

and through the Graduate School of Education.

Lydia Liu’s experience may have been the most

fortuitous.

Growing up in Hunan Province, Liu was among

the first generation to experience China’s one-

child policy (that country’s family planning

policy introduced around 1980). She attended the

University of Science and Technology of China as

an English and Science major, but numbers have

always infatuated her.

After enrolling in an education psychology

program at a Big Ten college, Liu became

intrigued by a series of textbooks, Objective

By STEVEn COHEn

Spotlight

Ou Lydia LiuTaking It To the Blank

“GSe is a very diversified, dynamic community and offers a lot of opportunities to think independently, learn and develop.”

21 connected

…class notes

Richard Chambers, M.A. ’76, multiple

subjects credential ’79, Ph.D. ’87, is president

of America's Return Inc. He has consulted

with more than 1,200 senior management

teams, and has spoken before thousands of

others through presentations for corporations,

business schools and professional

organizations. He is the former vice president

of one of the nation's largest small-business

consulting companies.

Fred Murray, single subject credential ’76,

a classroom teacher since he graduated,

sends greetings to all his classmates in the

University of California Cooperative Teacher

Preparation Project (UCCTPP).

John Lee, Ed.D. ’79, is president of JBL As-

sociates. The firm recently finished a feasi-

bility study for a new community college in

Washington, D.C., the last major American city

without a community college. The plan will

be the basis for the development of the college

over the next several years.

1980sFatima Badry, Ph.D. LLSC ’83, is professor

and head of the Department of English at

American University of Sharjah in the United

Arab Emirates. She is directing a conference,

December 17-19, 2009, on Bilingualism and

Bilingual education in the Middle East, with

the theme, “Fostering Multiliteracies Through

Education: Middle Eastern Perspectives.”

Sharon Gocke, Ph.D. Educational

Administration ’83, also earned a degree in

law from the University of San Francisco and

is a practicing attorney on a part-time basis.

A professor of Philosophy and Humanities at

Napa valley College, she has won a National

Endowment for the Humanities award to

study Naturalistic Epistemology at the

University of Hawaii and a Ford Foundation

Fellowship to do research at vassar College in

New york.

1990sJodi Libretti, M.A. DTE

'90, has worn many

educational hats since

earning her teaching

credential. While in

California, she taught

various elementary grades, as well as bilingual

Spanish, ELD and English-immersion classes

in public schools. She took a leave from the

"indoor classroom" to teach environmental

education at a wilderness preserve and direct

the training of volunteer naturalists, ages 18–

80. After moving to Chicago, Libretti worked

for the Great Books Foundation as a national

training instructor and then for the Wright

Group developing a mathematics program. She

currently works as a consultant and writer,

mainly in the area of math. She also directs

the education program for children and young

people at her church and is founder and leader

of a grassroots group working for peace and

social justice.

Paul MacFarlane, M.A. teaching credential

DTE ’93, is in his second year teaching English

at Tianjin University in Tianjin, China. He says

that his new career in China has given him a

new professional lease on life after teaching

elementary school in California for 30 years.

Desiree Pointer Mace, M.A. ’96, Ph.D. LLSC

’01, is an assistant professor of Education

at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI, and

the author of the recently published Teacher

Practice Online: Sharing Wisdom, Opening Doors

(Teachers College Press, 2009). Her work

focuses on envisioning and inventing ways

of representing teaching and learning using

If you would like to submit a Class Note please fill out the form at gse.berkeley.edu/admin/communications/classnotes.html. Class Notes for future issues must reach us by September 30, 2010.

1950sEllis Harlow, M.A. ’55, taught German and

French at oakland High School for 35 years. For

25 years, he was associated with GSE’s Teacher

Training Program, and Dr. Karl Shevill's study

Performance Evaluation of Foreign Languages.

A veteran of World War II combat, he retired as

a captain and is past president of the Sacra-

mento chapter of Military officers Association

of America. Harlow has written American

and European history textbooks that have

been adopted in nearly every state, including

California. He retired from teaching in 1983

but still takes a limited number of clients as

a literary consultant. “I am 87,” he says, “but

they tell me I don't look a day over 77, and there

are mornings when I feel like 97.”

John Andes, Ed.D. ’57,

served as assistant superin-

tendent in the Richmond

schools and then as super-

intendent of the San Mateo

schools. After retiring in

1970, he served as president

of the California Retired Teachers Association,

treasurer of the National Retired Teachers

Association, and as an AARP Trainer. He moved

to Friendship village in Tempe, AZ in 1990, and

will be 98 years young in January.

1960sTerry Maul, M.A. Education ’68, Ph.D.’70,

recently retired as professor and department

chair of San Bernardino valley College’s School

of Psychology. Like his son, Andy (see ’08 Class

Note), he is still devoted to GSE, where he

serves on the Alumni Council.

1970sGwen Grondal, Gwen Grondal, M.A.

’70, Ph.D. Education: Policy, Planning and

Administration ’75, is a consultant residing

in Carlsbad, CA. She spends most of her time

teaching and mentoring doctoral learners at

the University of Phoenix School of Advanced

Studies.

Tom Torlakson, multiple subjects credential ’72,

M.A. ’77, is in his final term in the California State

Assembly. He previously served in the State Senate

from 2000–08 and the State Assembly from 1996-

2000. Torlakson is a candidate for California State

Superintendent of Public Instruction in November

2010. Torlakson's career in public service began

as a science teacher in 1972. He was elected to the

Antioch City Council in 1978, and then served on

the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors for 16 years.GSe Professor and PACe Director Bruce Fuller, left, listens to Torlakson.

Steven Cohen

22 connected22 connected

Katie Charner-Laird, M.A. teaching credential

DTE '00, is principal of the Lincoln-Eliot

Elementary School in Newton, Massachusetts.

Before becoming a principal, Charner-Laird

was a teacher and literacy coordinator at

the Cambridgeport School in Cambridge,

Massachussetts for six years. She also received

an M.Ed. in School Leadership from Harvard

Graduate School of Education and is a mom to

a “fabulous first grader.”

Deborah McKoy, Ph.D.

PoME ’00, director of

the Center for Cities &

Schools and a lecturer

in City & Regional

Planning, received the

Faculty Service-Learning

Leadership Award at this

year’s UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Public Service

Awards in recognition for her efforts to engage

students in public-planning research and

action in the oakland area.

Suzanne Yee, M.A. Athletes and Academic

Achievement ’00, has relocated from the West

Coast to the East Coast, where she recently

began her first season as assistant swim coach

for men and women at University of North

Carolina, Wilmington. Previously, yee served as

assistant coach at Washington State University

from 2000–08.

Maureen Maloney, Ed.D. ’01, is vice president

for student affairs and dean of students at

the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Formerly the women’s basketball coach at San

Francisco State, she remains an avid sports fan

and is a season ticket holder for Cal women’s

basketball.

Lorraine (Lori) Falchi, M.A. teaching

credential DTE '02, is an instructor,

research assistant and doctoral candidate at

Teachers College, Columbia University. She

credits DTE's combination of teaching and

practitioner research with a focus on English

language learners as especially valuable to

her research, which examines multilingual

children's changing participation in multiple

literacies.

Lisa Griffin, single subject credential ’02, M.A.

MUSE ’03, is a new lecturer in GSE’s Language

and Literacy, Society and Culture area. She

received her doctorate from the University of

new media and online technologies. She has

developed multimedia websites of exemplary

practitioner inquiry for many years, beginning

with her work at the Carnegie Foundation

for the Advancement of Teaching. There,

Pointer Mace and Ann Lieberman co-directed

the Goldman-Carnegie Quest Project for

Signature Pedagogies in Teacher Education,

focused on the use of such websites in pre-

service teacher education, and the Noyce-

Carnegie Quest Project for Elementary

Literacy, which documented the relationship

between classroom practice and professional

development in elementary writing. Pointer

Mace and Lieberman are the founding co-

editors of Inside Teaching, a "living archive" of

teaching practice.

Marlo Kahn Kitch, M.A. teaching credential

DTE ’97, and a secondary credential in

mathematics ’04, teaches resource math and

advanced algebra to ninth grade students at

Eastside College Preparatory School in East

Palo Alto. She says that “it is a fabulous place

to teach with students who are extremely

motivated to do the hard work that will

help them be prepared to attend college.”

Previously, Kitch taught middle school math

and science in Palo Alto for nine years.

Sam Platis, M.A. teaching

credential DTE ’98, serves

as a district administrator

for 27 middle and K–8

schools in the Long Beach

Unified School District.

Having also served as a

kindergarten teacher, coordinator of state

and federal categorical programs, assistant

principal and principal, he continues to draw

inspiration from his tremendously valuable

experience in DTE. Platis and his wife Laura

are most proud of their three-year-old budding

scholar, Mateos, who will be a big brother in a

few short weeks. Platis still recalls Professor

Paul Ammon's anecdotes of Piagetian tasks

with his son, Peter, and he celebrated profusely

when Mateos recently demonstrated his

understanding of Conservation of Number.

Colette Cann, M.A. ’99, Ph.D. Social and

Cultural Studies ’06, is an assistant

professor of Education at vassar College in

Poughkeepsie, New york, where her research

interests include teacher education, teaching

at the secondary level and the distribution

of teacher resources. Cann is organizing the

third annual Teachers, Teaching and the

Movies: Representations and Pedagogy in Film,

Television and New Media, a multi-disciplinary

conference at vassar, April 8-10, 2010.

Patricia Young, LLSC ’99, an assistant

professor in Literacy Education at the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County,

edited Instructional Design Frameworks and

Intercultural Models (Information Science

Reference, 2008), a book about the need to

design Information and communication

technologies with a focus on generic and

specialized users and learners for companies to

remain competitive in the global technological

marketplace.

2000sGilberto Arriaza, Ph.D. Social and Cultural

Studies ’00, is professor and chair of the

Department of Educational Leadership in

the College of Education at California State

University East Bay, and co-author of The Power

of Talk. How Words Change Our Lives (Corwin

Press, 2009). From 2000–07, he taught at the

College of Education, San Jose State University

where he also served as co-director of the

Leading for Equity and Achievement Designs

(LEAD) Center, working on school reform.

Susan Roberta Katz, Ph.D. Language, Literacy and Culture ’94, a

professor of International & Multicultural Education (IME) at the

University of San Francisco (USF) and a visiting professor at the

Graduate School of Education, has developed an emphasis in Human

Rights Education (HRE) for M.A. and Ed.D. candidates at USF, the first

pedagogical college in the nation to offer that option. She also received

a Fulbright fellowship in Ecuador to study bilingual/intercultural

education among the Shuar, an indigenous group in the Amazon. Katz has plenty of support

from her GSE and USF colleagues. USF assistant professors Shabnam Koirala-Azad, Social

and Cultural Studies ’04, and Emma Fuentes, Social and Cultural Studies '05, helped develop

and teach new courses for the human rights program.

23 connected Winter 2009 23

Rochester. Griffin and her husband happily

announced the birth of their second son, Ando

Kenneth Naruishi, born in July.

Becky Cox, Ph.D. PoME ’04, is the author of

the just-released, The College Fear Factor: How

Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another

(Harvard University Press, 2010), which builds

on her GSE dissertation.

Beth Samuelson, Ph.D. LLSC ’04, is an

assistant professor in the Department of

English Language and Literature at Central

Michigan University.

K. Wayne Yang, Ph.D.

Social and Cultural

Studies ’04, gave the

keynote at GSE’s

Commencement on May

17. yang told the audience

of graduates, faculty, families, students and

friends to fight for the underdog as they

pursue their careers as teachers and scholars.

Laura Vallejo, Ph.D. ELLC ’05, is a child

development instructor at Santa Rosa Junior

College.

The Joint Doctoral Program in Special Educa-

tion, offered jointly with San Francisco State

University, has quietly graduated about 109

doctoral students since the first degree was

conferred in 1974.

“We may be one of the best kept secrets in

the School,” says GSE Professor Anne Cun-

ningham, who has directed the program

since 1997. “The graduates of our program

are engaged in a variety of careers, from

academic positions in large universities to

state-level positions as directors of special

education to private consultants in the

field.”

San Francisco State University (SFSU)

has practically become the feeder school

for program graduates: Lori Goetz (’81),

Pam Hunt (’86), Pamela LePage (’95),

Amanda Lueck (’79) and Pamela Wolf-berg (’94) are all tenure-track professors;

Phyllis Tappe (’92) and Claudia Wilson

(’99) are adjunct professors; Betty Yu (’09)

is a new assistant professor; while others,

like doctoral candidate Emmy Fearn, have

already taught and supervised credential

students at SFSU.

Yu began work in San Francisco State’s

Communicative Dis-

orders Program in the

Department of Special

Education just one week

after filing her disserta-

tion in August. “The

transition was swift and surreal,” says yu.

“Although the dust is still settling, I have

gotten my bearings enough to report that I

love my job.”

yu’s classmate, Emily Nusbaum (’09)

was also quick out of the

gates. Nusbaum filed her

dissertation last May and

immediately accepted

an assistant professor

position in the College

of Education at California State University,

Fresno. While teaching two courses in the

Moderate-Severe disabilities credential

program there, she also works on revising

that credential and travels throughout the

Central valley visiting schools and programs

for students with labels of severe disability.

Not all recent program graduates go the

professorial route. They have served as direc-

tors or administrators of clinically based

special education programs in public or

private facilities.

These days, Liz Hartmann (’09) is piec-

ing together work in a

variety of part-time posi-

tions including as an

educational consultant

for Perkins Internation-

al, part of Perkins School

for the Blind. An estimated 10 percent of the

6 million children worldwide who are blind

or visually impaired have access to an educa-

tion. Hartmann is doing her part.

“As one of the consultants to the program,

I work to provide support to teacher educa-

tion programs in universities in The Philip-

pines and Kenya,” writes Hartmann.

“I also provide direct support to local educa-

tional programs and advocate for innovative

and sustainable social change. For example,

in Kenya, I am collaborating with the Kenya

Ministry of Education to develop a com-

prehensive diploma program at the Kenya

Institute of Special Education (KISE) that

will prepare teachers to educate children

with multiple disabilities, such as deafblind-

ness. I work closely with the professionals

at KISE to develop curriculum, train faculty

and prepare practicum sites throughout

the country. our goal is to build local and

sustainable expertise by training teachers

throughout Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.”

Another recent graduate, Yael Bieder-man Galinson (’03),

works part time as

a lecturer for GSE’s

Developmental Teacher

Education program, and

runs her own business,

Signing Smart, to teach parents and young

(hearing) children to communicate using

signs from American Sign Language. on the

side, Biederman consults and edits chil-

dren’s books.

Biederman might speak for others in the

program, when she says: “I feel that the JD

program gave me the freedom to develop my

research interests but, at the same time, I

was challenged to understand these particu-

lar interests within a broader context.”

Special Education Graduates: Ready, Set, Gone!

When Andy Maul, QME ’08, returned

to Tolman Hall last spring to speak

at a BEAR (Berkeley Evaluation and

Assessment Research Center) Seminar,

his former advisor, Professor Mark Wilson,

presented the recent graduate with an

honorary cap to remember his former

school. Currently, Maul is hanging his hat

at the University of oslo in Norway,where

he is doing post-doctoral work while his

wife, Diana Arya, is a Fulbright Scholar

there (see page 11).

24 connected

friends

Spotlight Andrew Galpern timely tips for trying times

Fifth-year POME student Andrew Galpern moonlights as author of a popular series of online tips designed to keep the GSE community happy, healthy, plugged-in and solvent in tough economic times. Advice ranging from where to find free music festivals to where to get your flu shot is dispensed with the flair of a connoisseur whose far-ranging interests and academic background include the fine and performing arts.

Sample Tips: “If you ever drop, crush, fold, spindle or mutilate your cell phone, USED phones are widely available on eBay and Craigslist, sometimes for as little as $10. If you buy used, don’t expect a perfect camera with an unlimited battery, and, of course, always shop safely. You might also want a backup phone for the car, or to take kayaking, etc. And if you don’t want to learn a NEW phone, then buy a clone of your old phone.”

“Ever want to turn $250 into a $1000? Well, there is a pretty nifty deal going on right now at Berkeley and the GSE, where donations to the school get matched if you are a recent or soon-to-be alum. Basically, you donate, they match the gift and you can designate where it goes in the School of Education. You can pick a person and/or a program to honor with your gift.”

This tip was sparked by department-wide discussions of this year’s state budget difficulties (see page 7). Galpern was troubled:

“Most of the discussion was about cuts rather than increasing revenues. Only a little talk of fundraising, private money, grants, etc. When I learned about the matching (the New Alumni Challenge quadruples gifts from current students and recent alumni), I couldn’t believe that not everyone was participating.”

Galpern immediately made a gift in honor of his professors in Quantitative Methods and Evaluation, who were thrilled at his gesture. “The news has made my day,” said a delighted Michael Ranney.

Galpern serves as a member of the Student and Alumni Outreach Council launched last spring. When asked about the value of his experience at GSE, Galpern responded on GSE’s Facebook Fans Page. “I’ve had the opportunity to take classes with some really smart people. I’ve participated in research groups inside and outside of my department, with discussions that have (literally) made my brain feel like it was expanding. I’ve been allowed to wander and day dream a bit, and even take a few classes that were pretty far out of my area.”

With Galpern’s love of fundraising and quality entertainment, he is now threatening to organize a faculty talent show….

Tax Planning Tip you may know that Congress has reauthorized legislation that allows donors who are age 70 1/2 or older to make direct charitable gifts of up to $100,000 from their IRA accounts during the 2009 tax year without incurring income tax on the withdrawal. This may be a great way to make a gift to the Graduate School of education. While the individual cannot claim a charitable deduction for these IRA gifts, income tax will not be paid on the amount withdrawn. Transfers must be made from a traditional or Roth IRA account by the plan provider directly to the University of California, Berkeley for the benefit of GSe. Please talk to your plan provider or accountant for further details on this limited opportunity. For general information about these IRA gifts you may also call the UC Berkeley Office of Gift Planning at 510/642-6300.

25 connected Winter 2009 25

Kenneth Behring, left, with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau at the graduation celebration for Principal Leadership Institute Cohort 9

Patricia, Kenneth and David Behring with representatives from Principal Leadership Institute Cohorts 1 through 10

Mary Jane Brinton and ned Flanders are surrounded by Flanders Fellowship Award winners at the Graduate School of education Scholarship Tea.

POMe doctoral candidate Lynette Parker, left, with former BeAR co-director Cathleen Kennedy

MACSMe student Chris Bing, left, with Kerri Lubin

Photos: Peg Skorpinski

26 connected

l e a de r ship donor s a nd r e se a rch f u nde r s

$1,000,000 or moreAnonymousBill and Melinda Gates FoundationCalifornia Department of EducationInstitute of Education Sciences, U.S.

Department of EducationNational Science FoundationWilliam and Flora Hewlett

Foundation

$500,000-$999,999James Irvine FoundationSpencer Foundation

$250,000-$499,999Kenneth E. BehringNoyce Foundation

$100,000-$249,999Full Circle FundMcGraw-HillStuart FoundationEstate of Dr. Margaret A. Williams

$50,000-$99,999American-Israeli Cooperative

EnterpriseAnonymousMara W. Breech FoundationFirst Five, Alameda CountyEstate of Helen Murphy Neumann

$10,000-$49,999Germano CorazzaMiranda Heller and the Clarence E.

Heller Charitable FoundationEstate of William S. Howe, Jr.Teresa and Michael McGuireEstate of James W. Scott, Jr

$5,000-$9,999Alison and Gerald ogdenUC Berkeley office of Equity and

Inclusion

$1,000-$4,999Elizabeth and Michael

AbramowitzMary Elizabeth Riordan-KarlssonDean P. David and Mary Alyce

Pearson

$500-$999Karen BlankBarbara and Scott Brady-SmithAllison M. CastrejonChristine Cziko and Richard

SterlingKathleen and Richard Davis Colette and Donald KelseySusan NewmanSusan Powell and James RevieAdo yoneko WadaLinda Wing

$250-$499Lynne and John AverettDebrah and Paul BakerDonald ChambersToby and Barry FernaldElyse and David FlemingDiane and Robert JonesMyrna and Richard JonesJocelyn and Michael KelleherDr. Philip A. LumAustin and Marjorie PrindleNancy and Glenn RankinJames RichmondMary SchwartzSteiner BooksMelinda S. WallaceLynn and Peter WendellPatricia and Jeffrey Williams

$100-$249verna J. Arnest Gail BenedettoAndrea BircherLynnette and Hugh BonnerJill and Jeffrey BradenMary Jane and Neal BrockmeyerJoseph Brulenski

Barbara Anne BurtonMolly CananAnn Elizabeth CareyShelley and Sherman Cavinessyueh-Wen ChangRebecca and Caleb CheungMuriel Christen-Jones and and

Arnold ChristenAndrea Kune-Clark and

Woodrow Wilson ClarkMary and Howard CohenRamah Commanday and

yossef NeimanStephanie Felheim CowanLaura and Robert DevinneyJade and Michael DoddCarol A. DwyerRoslyn Elms SutherlandJill FalconerDrs. Diana Fong and Stephen LeeMargaret and Rex FortuneJesus GarciaMaryl GearhartMargaret GebhardPeter GelpkeRosalie GiffordClaudia and Loren GrossiChristopher HadleyJadwige and Tadeusz HaskaLinda HendersonGeorge Herringvictor HuangHarriet JenkinsDonald KesterJack KohnRobert KuselFred LadoJana and Freeman LaneMary Laniervictoria LewisAnna LiuSally and Rodney LorangAnne and David Manchestervictoria and Walter MuiAnne MurrayMarilyn NixArnethia okeloRuth omatsuPhelana PangMonica ParisiHyun-Sook Park and Stanley youngLinda and Douglas Penfield

Kathryn E. PerryJuanita PetersonRoyce Lorraine PetersonLaura PostCharles RatliffCynthia and Ronald RavenBarbara and Richard RedaliaJulie ReisAlice Chen and Rudolph RicoWilliam RupleyAnn and David SakaiBarbara and David SanchezDian and Steven SchlegelCarol Ann and William SchofieldMarilou and John Shankel Nancy Sheppard and

Stephen PoulladaMerlene and Robert SherwoodRichard SilbergLaurel and Todd SmithKathy Sue and Charles SolariJane and David SternDouglas SuganoDonald SutherlandSally SwartsJunko Tanaka Jennifer and Joseph villeneuvePaula and Richard WalkerMary Linda and Robert

WeidenhamerProfessors Rhona and Harvey

WeinsteinGudrun and Willie WestNancy WestonAlan WilsonLeslie WoolleyLarry WornianDaniel J. Zimmerlin

$1-$99Timothy AllenWilliam Frank Arseniookai Marchman Aryee and

Lorraine MarchmanDorothy and Clifford BachandElizabeth BartheCarol Jeanne BeaumontColleen BenderDavid BerkeSusan BerkmanJeffrey BerlinLisa Bland

The Graduate School of education gratefully acknowledges the following individuals, institutions and foundations that supported our efforts to advance education and provide opportunity for all.

a n nua l f u nd donor s

d o n o r s j u l y 1 , 2 0 0 8 , t h r o u g h j u n e 3 0 , 2 0 0 9

27 connected Winter 2009 27

Barbara and Jerry BrunettiJandre and Douglas BuckJoseph v. BuiEileen BurgerMatthew BuschSusan CallenKaren CarrollElizabeth CarterBarbara and Geoffrey CaseBerit and Horace CattolicoBernadette ChiConstance and Zoher ChibaSusan and Massimiliano ChiodoHsiangkuan and Justin ChouErika CollinsSusan ConklinJennifer ConnorShirley ConvirsSarah CremerGail DaffornJean DaltonAnita P. and James DavyKathleen Dice and Dennis

RockwayJulia DickinsonDaniel Dobkin and

Nina Wong-DobkinSuzanne DouglasSusan and Charles DornHarriet and Albert DraperJill and Brent DuncanKathryn and John DuntonRichard EdelsteinAllison EganMary Kathleen FairbanksPeter FaruggioDonna FeciNina FloroSharon FriedmanKay and Robert GarrardBrooks GeikenJudith and Thomas GielowRenee Golany-Koel and

Bertram KoelDoris GoldthwaiteCynthia and Manuel GonzalesJames GreenCatherine and Kenneth GrossKathleen and Ignacio GuevaraWendy GulleySheila and George Gurnee Cynthia and Dean GuyerChristopher HadleyLaurie HarrisonGrete and otto HeinzRobin HenkeIrva Ann Hertz-Picciotto and

Henri PicciottoNorman HillMark HolmanMarilyn HulsoorTony D. Huynh

Margaret Anne HydeNan Christine JacksonSharon and William JagerMuriel JamesSusan and John JenningsAnne Elizabeth JustAnne Elizabeth KaffkaBrenda KangasAdrienne KennedyRobert KesslerStephanie KeyserAllison KingKim KitaElizabeth and Wesley LaiLourdes LambertDiana LandisRobert LandwehrRobert LawsonLinda and Stephen LazzareschiKaren MalmstromMary Lee MaloneyRuth and Robert ManloveLinda Jane Mariani and

George osborneJean MartinTerry MaulAllyson McAuleyElizabeth H. McClenahanJane McDonough and Stephen

SpectorBilliejean McElroy-DurstStephen McMahon and Mireya

SanchezAlison MillerKristina MinorDouglas MoodyCharles C. MooreElizabeth ozolKarina and Ronald PazCarol Marie PenaraJesse and Maxine PerryAaron PhippsEarl Francis PimentelFannie Jeanne and Johnny PrestonChristopher RampoldtLaurie RobertsCarissa Leigh RomanoJoyce RosenbaumMary and Peter RosenfieldCarolyn and Douglas RotmanSusan and David RoundsRobin and Daniel RowlandNan RutherfordSharon Beth SacksKatherine and Timothy SalterRuth SaxtonBarbara Jean ScalesDiane and Jack SchusterLynn SherrellJoanne and John ShultzJoy SledgeDoris Smith

Cary SneiderAnna SontagCynthia SpeedMimi and Eric SteadmanZelma Elizabeth StottSally and David StowBeverly and Neil SweeneyJo Ellyn TaylorDenise and Johnny TomSusan Ann TullisBarbara Jane villereElizabeth and Craig WahlJo Ann WarnerAlison and Stephen WatermanAnthony Xian-Di WeeAllyson WernerRobert WhitlowMallorie and Harold WilkersonMary-Alice and Brayton WilsonChristopher WuGordon y. yamamotoJeremy yangLesley youngDavid ZeffRita Zhang

schol a r ship f u nd donor s

$5,000-$9,999Haws CorporationMAKo FoundationMarilyn and William Selby

$2,500-$4,999Estate of June Dowler ButeauRobert J. BreuerProfessors Bruce Fuller and

Susan HollowayDean P. David and Mary Alyce

PearsonArlene and vic Willits

$1,000-$2,499AnonymousDr. Louis F. BatmaleProfessor Emerita K. Patricia CrossBarbara and David DanskyRosette and Homer DawsonKathryn A. DuncanTerry Sweitzer EmmettDr. Allan P. GoldJack A. GravesGerald and Linda HaywardLenore and Frank HeffernanDr. Sara Hopkins-PowellDaniel Wilson KeeCathleen and Kenneth KennedyMargaret KiddCheryl and Mark LieblingKerri and Mark Lubin

MPR Associates: Susan Choy and Gary Hoachlander

oSKIPhi Delta KappaEsther and Robert RiceMargaret SaulsberryTien-Cheng v. ShenMiye M. TakagiGary Steven valdezRaynor and Michael voorhies

$500-$999Norma Rice Bishop and Ellis

BishopCeinwen L. CarneyJeffrey LambertJane and Michael LeonardProfessors Geoffrey Saxe and

Maryl GearhartLynn and Peter Wendell

$250-$499Shirley and Donald Dal PortoJean and Arthur HustonKathleen and John PetersonMary Louise SoltisJamal and Klaudia SplaneSuzanne and Marc Stein Siv and Anthony WheelerJane and Dana Wheeler

$100-$249Anonymous Susan and Al AdamsSandra and David AndersonWilliam D. BethellAllen BlackMichael and Patricia BuskChasse CarrollAliena and victor ChinJin young ChooDr. Carne ClarkeMary Dell ClarkeNorma Jo Ann CoxCrail-Johnson FoundationLeslie CrawfordJulie CrumDrs. Gary and Jolinda DecadCesar Del PeralDr. Tom FinnBarbara FoormanSusan FoxPatricia and James GangwerMichele Garsidevern Greenyukiyo HayashiRobert HotelingMimi and Proverb Jacobsvinetta JonesKristine KimuraLlewellyn KirbyDiane and John Kopchik

28 connected

Jack T. KohnLois and Ronald LeonardAnne and Peter LevineSarah and James ManyikaHermine and Sumner Marshall Frederick Murray and

Lennie CookeMarie Luise ottoShirley Ann PerkinsTherese PipeDr. Linda M. PlatasLalit RoyAletha and Hugh SilcoxPhyllis WeinmanPatricia H. Wheeler, Ph.D.Craig and Kim WilsonPamela and Douglas WongTeresa and otis WongHelena WorthenDr. Rebecca J. Zwick

$1-$99Fern ArmytageKatharine A. BambergEdward ChuLynette DanielsSean CurryGerald GallowayMichal GallowayMary Madigan GraneyChristopher HadleyNorman HillPatricia and Kenneth JohnsonRita JonesIlene and Gary KatzBarbara and Richard La RueJana and Freeman LaneJohn LeeJudith H. LemleyMary J. LowryMichael and Miki MatsumotoJulia Menard-WarwickRichard Mills and

Jane Spencer MillsElaine and Michael PenzerMark RobinsonElizabeth ShaferMaryann SmetzerPatricia and Michael SullivanSanna and John ThomasSandra and Kenneth TramielDr. Greta vollmerJanet WestbrookKeith Wilson

ac a de mic ta l e n t de v elopme n t progr a m

Dr. Joseph and Mrs. Mary CastroMei K. ChenDrs. Diana Fong and Stephen LeeJoanne GordonDena GriffinGary GriffinMr. and Mrs. Charles LandefeldCathy and Tom McGowan

pr i ncipa l l e a de r ship i ns t i t u t e schol a r ship f u nd

AnonymousLarissa AdamKarling Aguilera-FortMarisa AlfieriLisa AllphinJuan Carlos AlvaradoJudith Guilkey-Amado and

Gary AmadoTasha AnestosBenjamin AuKelly BaeJennifer BenderMaureen BensonBarbara BlackburnFarah and Jason BonoFred BrillRobert BroeckerMaureen ByrneMaria CarriedoAlysse CastroKennelynn CeraldeLottye and Neal ClaytonDiane ColbornPamela and William ConradLuis CovarrubiasMary Lou and James CrannaNina D’AmatoKristen De AndreisJose De LeonSara DieliLeah DubinskyPamela DuszynskiNatalie EberhardShamar EdwardsErica EhmannTamea EnosThomas FairchildMargo FontesKaren FrancoisCarin GeathersJim Gleich

Kristin GlenchurJeannette GrossRoma GrovesProfessor W. Norton and

Erica B. GrubbMaya GurantzLaura HackelJohn HallEulalia and Bernard HalloranKarim HammamiMark HaraPatricia HarmonMatthew HartfordMichael HatcherMark HerreraJeremy HilinskiClifford HongThomas HughesMatthew HuxleyPia JaraLisa Marie Jimenez-CameronKyla JohnsonAnne JohnstonJoel JulienDongshil KimDori and Maurice KingLinda KingstonHumphrey KiuruwiGregory KoPaul KohMarilyn and Joshua KoralNancy LambertLinda and Malcolm Leader-PiconeLearning to Teach FoundationErica LingrellIlene LinssenGlenda and Paul LoweryEric LowyHanna MaElizabeth MacClainGregory MarkwithRuth MathisNancy and Jack MayedaNicole McAuliffeTeresa and Michael McGuireLucius McKelvyKaren McKeownSarah McLaughlinAdelaida MelgozaMary and Anastasios MelisMarie MelodiaRose MinicozziGloria Ann MinjaresIrma MunozEvelyn NadeauJane o’BrienJose olivaresJonathan oslerKarrie Ann PassalacquaP. David and Mary Alyce PearsonTracy PeoplesMyra Quadros-Meis

Linda RardenMichael RatkewiczMichael RayJessica RigbyLaurie Ann RobertsCarole and Kenneth RobiePriscilla RobinsonDaniel RooseJudith Rosenvincent RuizDavid SamsonMarisa SantoyoIris Eileen SegalMorgan SeraIngrid Seyer-ochi and Karl ochiJanine SheldonGrace and John SimardDylan SmithKristie and Ronald SmithMichelle SousaSusan Speyer-BoilardLaurence Spillanevictoria and Michael SragoBessie StewartJonathan StewartMeghan and Douglas StylesKaren and Lewis TeelSuniqua ThomasJulie ThompsonLynda TredwayLynn Le TuDora Luz valentin-RiosPamela van de KampLori and Philip vellaKris vollweilerLauran Waters-CherryErin WheelerDanny WongStephanie young

i n me mory of he r b simons (a s of 10/15 /0 9)

Carole and John ChabinycPaula DiamondSarah and Robert FreedmanJoan and Joseph LaibDiane and David LevineLouella and Mel MaxwellRoni and Paul Jay MelmedP. David and Mary Alyce Pearsonyasmin SinghJoan and Robert SmithMurray SperberGail SplaverMarjorie and William TaylorBenjamin John TurmanDerek van RheenenRhona and Harvey Weinstein

GRADuATe SChOOl OF Educationuniversity of california, berkeley

From becoming strong teachers and school leaders, to researching individual learning styles, to studying the policy and cultural issues that shape education, Berkeley students in the Graduate School of Education are leading the way toward solving challenges in today’s toughest learning environments.

Your investment in fellowships for GSE students may be designated for a student seeking professional certification as an urban elementary school teacher; a secondary math, science or English teacher, or an urban principal – impacting not only our graduates, but the students, families, and communities they will serve.

UC Berkeley has been recognized as the top university in the nation for its contributions to the public good as measured by Washington Monthly’s annual rankings for 2009.

To make a gift online and for information on GSE, go to gse.berkeley.edu/admin/extrel, call 510/643.9784, or use the envelope enclosed in this issue.

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