Forum for Education and Democracy | A Briefing on the Next Congress, Educational Policy, and You
Nov 10 - 13, 2010 San Francisco, California San Francisco Marriott Marquis,
Register for Fall Forum: http://www.regonline.com/fall_forum_2010
Friday, November 11, 8:00am-9:45am
Fall Forum Featured Session
Forum for Education and Democracy Conveners George Wood, Deborah Meier, and Pedro Noguera will survey the new Congress, the status of educational legislation, and how it may affect you. Participants will be asked to help advise The Forum on the issues they would like to see addressed in policy agendas as well as how they would like to be involved. Come prepared to find out what you can do to protect and extend the schools you value.
The Forum for Education and Democracy, with offices in Athens, Ohio, is a national education "action tank" committed to the public, democratic role of public education--the preparation of engaged and thoughtful democratic citizens. At The Forum, we work to promote a public education system worthy of a democracy, one characterized by strong public schools, equity of educational resources, and an informed, involved citizenry. Forum Conveners leading this session include:
- George H. Wood is principal of Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio and serves as the Executive Director of The Forum. Dr. Wood's 30-year career in public education includes work as a classroom teacher, school board member, professor of education, and school principal. He is the Founding Director of Wildwood Secondary School in Los Angeles and has served as principal of Federal Hocking for 17 years. Federal Hocking is a rural school in Appalachian Ohio which has been recognized as a Coalition of Essential Schools Mentor School, a First Amendment School, and as one of America's 100 Best by Readers' Digest. He authored Governor Ted Strickland's (OH) K-12 Education Transition Paper as well as the books Schools That Work, Time to Learn, and Many Children Left Behind (ed. with Deborah Meier). Wood serves on the Coalition of Essential Schoos Executive Board.
- Pedro Noguera, also the keynote speaker at Fall Forum, is one of America's most important voices for healthy public education. An expert on school reform, diversity, and the achievement gap, he is a currently a professor at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. He is also a part-time high school teacher, the author of several groundbreaking texts, a regular guest on CNN, and a dynamic speaker who translates social theory into concise, hip language with emotional impact and intellectual rigor. Pedro Noguera has been a professor at the graduate schools of both Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or editor of several books, including the seminal City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming The Promise of Public Education and Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools. He has also engaged in collaborative research with large urban school districts. Recently, he helped launch A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a group of public policy experts in various fields (housing, education, civil rights), and from across the political spectrum, working to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little. The group works in areas that research shows must be addressed if we are to keep our promises to all of America's children.
- Deborah Meier has spent nearly four decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer and public advocate. The elementary and secondary schools she helped create in New York City and Boston serve predominantly low income African-American and Latino students; these schools are considered exemplars of performance-based home-grown standards. She is the author of popular books such as The Power of Their Ideas, In Schools We Trust, and Many Children Left Behind (co-edited with George Wood). Her latest book, Playing for Keeps: Life and Learning on a Public School Playground, with Breda S. Engel and Beth Taylor, is published by Teachers College Press. Meier is currently at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, as senior scholar a as well as Board member and director of New Ventures at Mission Hill School, Forum for Education and Democracy convener, and serves on the Exective Board of The Coalition of Essential Schools. In 1987 Deborah Meier was awarded a McArthur Foundation "Genius" Award, the first educator to be so honored. At Fall Forum, Deborah Meier is also presenting In Defense of Play on Friday, November 12, 1:30-3:15pm.
