Featured Speaker Bios

Lani Guinier
Thursday, November 11th, 6:00 - 7:30pm
Civil rights attorney Lani Guinier is the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. The author of the politically powerful memoir, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice, she was introduced to the public in 1993 when President Clinton nominated her to be the first black woman to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. With an insight that is both unique and arresting, Guinier has become a leading advocate for political reform over the past decade. She bridges the gap between constitutional law and its applications and offers plausible and effective solutions to our often-ailing democratic systems, while still embracing the principles upon which our nation was founded. She is also the author of Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change; The Tyranny of the Majority; Who’s Qualified?; and The Miner’s Canary.

Luis Garden Acosta
Friday, November 12th, 1:30 - 3:15pm
Luis Garden Acosta is the president and CEO of El Puente, a community and youth development center he founded in 1982 in his home community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For the past 22 years, he has led El Puente as a beacon for holistic learning and development, inextricably tied to the quest for peace and justice. Among his many current bridge-building roles, Luis is co-chair of New York City’s established Citizen Union Municipal Affairs Committee, founder of the Latino Social Justice Network, the founding chair of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, and a leading member of the New York City Council Electoral Reform Commission on the Implementation of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. Along with his partner, Frances Lucerna, he was the recipient of the Heinz Award for the Human Condition in 1998.

The Forum for Education and Democracy
Friday, November 12th, 8:00 - 9:45am
The Forum for Education and Democracy is devoted to supporting educational policies and practices that prepare the young for a life of active and engaged citizenship. Formed specifically to advocate for public policies that support schools that follow CES principles, The Forum seeks to add a new voice to debates about our schools in the media. In this panel, several Forum conveners, including Linda Darling-Hammond, Carl Glickman, John Goodlad, Deborah Meier, Ted Sizer, and George Wood, will discuss the nature and impetus of their work (including their book on NCLB) and the role that public advocacy should play in the professional lives of progressive educators.

Steve Jubb with Oakland School Reform Leaders
Saturday, November 13th, 10:15am - 12:00pm
A panel of leaders from Oakland’s New Small Schools Initiative will unpack the conference theme, “Equitable Schools for a New Democracy.” Sharing their personal experiences as leaders in this effort, panelists will explore core questions about equity, democracy, and sustainability in locally driven school reform. The panel will feature key leaders in the Oakland reform work: a school board member (Greg Hodge, OUSD), a teacher (Raquel Rodriquez-Jones from International Community School), a parent (Emma Paulino of Oakland Community Organizations), and a student (TBA).  Steve Jubb, executive director of the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES) will moderate the panel and provide opening and closing remarks.  

Dennis Littky
Friday, November 12th, 10:15am - 12:00pm
Dennis Littky is director of The Met High Schools in Providence, RI, and co-director of The Big Picture Company, a non-profit education design organization that creates and supports small, personalized, public schools that educate students “one kid at a time.” Dennis was principal of Thayer Junior/Senior High School in Winchester, NH, which was one of the original members of CES in the mid-1980s. Nationally known for his more than 35 years of innovative educational leadership, he was awarded the McGraw-Hill Companies’ Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education in 2002. He is the author (along with Samantha Grabelle) of The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business, which was published this fall by ASCD.

Jennifer Obidah
Saturday, November 13th, 8:00am - 9:45am
Jennifer E. Obidah is an associate professor of urban schooling in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Her research interests include the socio-cultural contexts of teacher-student interactions in urban classrooms, violence in communities and schools, and urban school reform. Dr. Obidah is co-author of Because of the Kids: Facing Racial and Cultural Differences in Schools, which received the 2001 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. She is currently the principal investigator of a five-year study of urban school reform aimed at increasing college access for economically disenfranchised African American and Latino students.

Laurie Olsen
Saturday, November 13th, 1:30 - 3:15pm
Laurie Olsen is the executive director of California Tomorrow, a non-profit research and technical assistance organization committed to building a fair and inclusive multicultural society. For three decades she has worked as a researcher, writer, speaker, and advocate providing professional development and technical assistance to communities and educators trying to create equitable, high-achieving schools that honor and celebrate the cultures and languages of all children. She currently works with school change coaches in Oakland and San Bernardino on issues related to small schools and English learners. She is the author of Made in America: Immigrants in U.S. Schools, and And Still We Speak: Stories of Communities and Schools Maintaining Culture and Language .

Deborah Meier
Saturday, November 13th, 3:45 - 5:15pm
Deborah Meier is currently the principal of Mission Hill Elementary School in Boston and vice-chair emerita of the Coalition of Essential Schools. She has spent more than three decades working in public education as a teacher, writer, and public advocate. She was the founder and teacher-director of a network of highly successful public elementary and secondary schools in East Harlem and the founder-principal of Central Park East Secondary School. Meier is the author of The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem, Will Standards Save Public Education?, In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization, and the recently published Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools , written with Ted and Nancy Sizer.

Ted Sizer
Saturday, November 13th, 3:45 - 5:15pm
Ted Sizer is the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools and the author of the three Horace books that describe CES' rationale and early years. He is professor emeritus at Brown University, where he served as chair of the education department from 1984-1989, and is currently a visiting professor at Harvard and Brandeis Universities. He and his wife Nancy recently served as the acting co-principals of the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Massachusetts. His two latest books, Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools, written jointly with Deborah Meier and Nancy Sizer, and The Red Pencil: Convictions From Experience in Education, were published in August 2004.