October 20, 2006
California Department of Education Receives
National Excellence Award for Third Time
SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Education (CDE) is the recipient of the prestigious 2006 Partnership State Award from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University based in Baltimore, Maryland.
"I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of the California Department of Education for the third straight year," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. "There’s an old African saying that ‘it takes a village’ to raise a child. The same is true with educating students. I am very proud of our hard work in building bridges linking us to the community to develop programs that help kids succeed in school and ultimately in life."
CDE was honored with the award earlier this month at the NNPS Leadership Development Conference in Baltimore. NNPS cited CDE for excellent leadership in developing family, school, and community partnership programs designed to help students succeed in school. CDE submitted an application to NNPS with detailed descriptions and evidence of the development of its partnership programs at the state, regional, county, district, and school levels. To receive the award in a subsequent year, CDE must have demonstrated continuous improvement and built upon the program for which it was awarded in the previous year.
After a careful assessment of the application, NNPS’ state award committee commended CDE's attention to helping schools form partnerships with the Single Plan for Student Achievement. In 2001, California’s legislature created the Single Plan for Student Achievement, designed to improve the academic performance of all students to the level of the performance goals established by California’s accountability model, the Academic Performance Index.
The NNPS committee also said it was interested in the work CDE is doing through partnerships to meet Adequate Yearly Progress targets as required under the federal accountability model, No Child Left Behind. The goal is to have 100 percent of students performing at or above the proficient level on state tests by 2013-14.
O’Connell is currently working with local and national education leaders to harmonize the state and federal accountability models to address the challenges and opportunities faced by California’s education system. Earlier this week, he and other education leaders held a series of public meetings to gather comments from people about reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. Among the topics were accountability, interventions and corrective actions, the highly qualified teacher requirement, and English learner issues.
"All of us at NNPS are very proud of the work that your department is conducting on school, family, and community partnerships," said Dr. Joyce L. Epstein, NNPS Director and Principal Research Scientist,. "The California State Department of Education is, indeed, a leader in helping districts and schools establish and sustain high-quality programs of school, family, and community partnerships. We are delighted to be working with you."
The award entitles CDE to special recognition from NNPS, a $500 prize to support partnership programs, a plaque, and free attendance at an NNPS leadership conference. CDE has been a member of NNPS since 1998. In 1995, researchers at Johns Hopkins University established NNPS in Baltimore, Maryland, to develop school, family, and community partnerships to help students succeed. For more information, please visit National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University [http://www.csos.jhu.edu/P2000/] (Outside Source).
For more information on CDE’s educational partnerships, please visit Educational Partnerships - Fact Book [Note, the preceding Web address is no longer valid]. For parent, family, and community learning support, nutrition, physical fitness, and the Clearinghouse for Multilingual Documents, please visit Learning Support. For O’Connell’s public meetings on the No Child Left Behind law, please visit Invitation to NCLB Public Hearings - Events [Note, the preceding Web address is no longer valid.] .
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