Michael Kozlow

Is New

Assessment Director

by Denise Jarrett Weeks

Michael Kozlow just got closer to his beginnings, even though it’s a full two-day drive from Portland to Cold Lake, the once-tiny Canadian town in the province of Alberta where he grew up. After 13 years in Toronto, Kozlow’s new job as director of NWREL’s Assessment Program has brought him back to the West, and closer to home. Now, he and his wife, Mikaella Lattieff, an artist, can see relatives more often and plant a garden, an enthusiasm they found difficult to indulge in the bigger city.

Cultivating is a motif that colors Kozlow’s life in education. From a childhood affinity for science and math that was rooted in his love for the family wheat farm and the town’s four-room schoolhouse, to tending the renewal of 500 urban schools in Ontario’s Toronto District, Kozlow’s seen what can be accomplished when learning flourishes. And, as a good gardener will tell you, attention to detail sows the seeds of improvement.

From the time he was a graduate research assistant and throughout his career with Canadian ministries of education and school districts, Kozlow has brought the power of careful research design and data analysis to his work on behalf of schools—from developing research-based curriculum and assessments to analyzing test results to inform classroom instruction.

"I’ve always had an interest in what happens with the data at the school and school board level," he says. His task at hand, now, is to help Northwest states to align their assessments with state standards, schools to collect and analyze data to document their improvements, and teachers to use classroom assessment to inform their instruction.

While another avid naturalist, Henry David Thoreau, found nature "perfect in its details," Kozlow looks to the details to cultivate more perfect schools. "That’s my passion," he says.