Friday, May 20, 2011, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Room SVC 212-10
First and East Capitol Streets, NE
Washington, DC 20515

Major federal education legislation, such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, promote top-down, formulaic turnaround strategies and school closures that identify schools as failing based on standardized test scores.  This study of Chicago’s experiment with major school reform between 1988 and 1996 shows, however, that a strategy focused on firing teachers or replacing principals cannot turn around schools that face multiple obstacles.

Speakers and Discussants

Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, New York University, co-chair of the Broader Bolder Approach to education Task Force, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, and author: City Schools and the American Dream.

Anthony Bryk, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, former chaired professor of education and business, Stanford University and University of Chicago, creator of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, and author, Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago.

James H. Shelton III, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Jitu Brown, community organizer, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Chicago.

Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey, President, Say Yes to Education, Inc. and expert on the Syracuse experiment.

*Books will be available for sale and signature by the authors from 9:30-10:00 am and from noon-12:30 pm. The program will begin at 10:00 am and end at noon.