Sarah Lawrence College
Hosts Conference On Crises in Education
Nationally
renowned educators will address controversial issues in education
that they consider to be of crisis proportions at a conference
hosted by Sarah Lawrence College's Child Development Institute
(CDI) April 1—2.
Confronting the Crises in Education will focus
on critical issues rocking the early childhood and elementary
education communities, including the pressures to introduce
academics in preschool, the achievement gap between middle-class
and disadvantaged students, and the rise of standardization,
high stakes testing and school choice. Panelists will discuss
these crises and present their views on ways to reconcile them.
“There is a real sense that these crises
have existed in various forms for decades, but the debate on
how to resolve them is at a much higher intensity now,” says
Margery Franklin, CDI director. “People in the field
feel an urgency about articulating and debating issues that
the larger public can understand, respond to and do something
about.”
Designed to provide a forum for substantive discussion
of current debates in education, the conference brings together
a group of eminent scholars who will speak on topics at the
intersection of theory, policy and practice as well as engage
the audience in discussion.
Edward F. Zigler, Director of the Bush Center in
Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University and Sterling
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus will present the keynote
lecture on Friday April 1 at 4:30 p.m. Four successive panels
will be held on Saturday, April 2 beginning at 9:00 and running
until 5:00 with a break for lunch at 12:15. Closing remarks
will conclude the program at 5:15 and a reception will be held
from 5:30-6:30.
Early
Education: Problems and Prospects—Sharon
Lynn Kagan and Edward Zigler
Issues
of Equity, Standards, and School Policy—Richard
Rothstein: Can Schools Close the Achievement Gap?
Charles V. Willie: The Real Crisis in Education:
Linking Excellence and Equity
Class,
Race, and Ethnic Identities—Walter
Feinberg: Rethinking the Educational Challenge of Race and
Class
Emilie Vanessa Siddle Walker: Where Do We Go Without
the Network of Black Educators?
Re-envisioning
Schools—Deborah
Meier, Nancy Faust Sizer, Ted Sizer: Keeping School: Principals'
Responsibility to Families and its Implication for What a
Truly Public School Must Be
The advance registration fee
of $25 includes a box lunch and refreshments.#
For further information, contact Jane Fineberg
at (914)-395-2630, or e-mail jfindberg@slc.edu. Sarah
Lawrence College's Child Development Institute was established
in
1987 to develop programs for early childhood
and elementary school teachers, administrators, child development
professionals, parents and the community at large.
