Led by President and Founder Dr. Eric Cooper and visionary Senior Scholar Dr. Yvette Jackson, the NUA and it’s dynamic team of scholars, researchers and consultants have empowered schools throughout the country to close opportunity gaps helping educators implement culturally responsive instructional practices rooted in Dr. Reuven Feurerstein’s research on cognitive modifiability. Since their founding in 1989 at the Columbia’s Teachers College and The College Board, the NUA has been guided by “the irrefutable belief in the capacity of all public school children to achieve the high intellectual performance demanded by our ever changing global society.”

Three core principles animate all aspects of the NUA’s work:

• Intelligence is modifiable;

• All students benefit from a focus on high intellectual performance;

• Learning is influenced by the interaction of culture, language and cognition.

Dr. Eric Cooper expressed a vision for the partnership rooted in these foundational principles and emphasized the potential for transformative change in schools:

“The CASDA and NUA partnership is based on a belief that with powerful education, all students are capable of the highest academic and occupational trajectories when provided pedagogical interventions informed by neuroscience and culturally responsive instruction," said Dr. Cooper. "The qualitative and quantitative data we and others have been compiling should strip ideology of its influence over public policy and funding.”

The implications of these ideas are profound. Deficit-driven determinism about the capacities of students of color, their families, and communities that is so prevalent in education is disrupted and replaced with an emphasis on cognitive strategies that help students connect their interests and experiences to classroom content and achieve at high levels. This framework has produced astounding results over the organization’s 30-year history. Case studies on their website detail growth in districts across the country including Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Bridgeport, Connecticut and Albany City School District.

Dr. Michael Piccirillo, CASDA’s Executive Director sums up the potential of a partnership that can bring transformative change to schools: “At CASDA, the central focus of our work is equity. Therefore, we look forward to partnering with the NUA to bring equity-focused professional development to our member districts driven by the NUA’s core principles accompanied by efforts to empower families and communities to shape the educational institutions that serve their children.”

​

For more information about how this partnership can benefit your district, contact CASDA Executive Director Michael Piccirillo at mpiccirillo@casdany.org.

JOIN NUA AT THEIR SUMMER INSTITUTE!

Accelerating Student Learning and Well-being Through Equity Consciousness

Join the National Urban Alliance at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN, for three stimulating days of collaborative professional learning designed for pre-K-12 educators. You will reignite your belief in the potential of every student to achieve while renewing your ability to inspire your students and teach them effectively. All activities will be based on the principles and practices of The Pedagogy of Confidence within the equity-based CLEAR framework to demonstrate how to stimulate high intellectual performance for all students.

Schools are encouraged to send participants as a team to the conference.

Conference Details:

• Where: Virtual Institute, hosted via Zoom by the University of St. Thomas School of Education

• Dates: June 15-17, 2021 (registration closes June 4, 2021)

• Hours: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. daily, Central Standard Time (with a half-hour lunch break each day)

• Cost: $300 per person. For every team of five that attends from a district, the fifth person attends for free.

• CEUs: 15 CEUs will be offered for attending this event. Please make sure you sign in and out each day so we can document your attendance and award you the CEU credits.