Fulfilling Promises Vol. 18 | No. 1 | Winter 2012
Academy of Health Sciences Forges New Maryland Partnership
Consortium Matters: The First National Early College Jam
The Key Cognitive Strategies, C-PAS, and the Common Core State Standards
Combining Theories For the Practicing Educator

Developing enlightened educational theories, to enable conceptual ideas to flourish within the practicing classroom, ensures the continuation of learning. Theory and practice are symbiotic relationships, which if presented correctly can meld vision and mission into a school’s culture.

CCSS, PARCC, SMARTER, KCS, EPIC, C-PAS* – are all these acronyms giving you a headache? Today, the educational focus is on college and career readiness and all of the preceding acronyms, each in their own way, aim to prepare graduating high school students for their next steps. And as we struggle to keep up, we may well wonder if there is any commonality and continuity in all of these. And we also may wonder where the work of MCNC (another acronym) fits in all of this. Here’s a look at a little history of what MCNC has been doing.

The level of commitment was evident in the passion with which everyone spoke about the students and the work. What quickly became evident as the registrations rolled in the weeks before the Jam is that despite many local adaptations, there is almost unanimous agreement about the program components necessary for students to be successful: engaging demanding academic work coupled with a very high level of student support sets up the expectations for hard work for all students.