Dr. Camille Cooper, the director of Teaching,Learning and Development at the Comer School Development Program at the Yale Child Study Center, was a presenter at the "Leading Educational Reforms: Empowering Brazil for the 21st Century" conference held in Campinas, Brazil October, 28-29, 2013.
Many of the public sector and nonprofit leaders in the education field in Brazil who attended the conference also participated in a program at the Greenberg Center at Yale University in April 2013. Both of events were co-sponsored by Yale and the Lemann Foundation, a non-profit organization, created in 2002 by Brazilian entrepreneur, Jorge Paulo Lemann.
The focus of the conference was on the development of common core curriculum standards. Dr. Cooper's presentation was on what conference organizers referred to as "non-cognitive" aspects of education. Referencing the work of child psychiatrist Dr. James P. Comer, Cooper urged conference participants to develop education policy that is based on knowledge of the developmental and learning sciences because development and learning are inextricably linked. She also stressed the importance of collaborative relationships between and among educators and parents.
Conference participants were given insider perspectives on the development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. by Susan Pimentel and Michael Cohen. Pimentel, the main author of the CCSS for literacy and the vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board that advises on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the U.S. national report card.
Michael Cohen shared strategic lessons from the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Under Cohen's leadership of Achieve, the organization launched the American Diploma Project Network and formed the Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC), one of two multi-state consortia developing common assessments and helped develop the CCSS.