|
WELLESLEY,
Mass. -- What is at stake for education as the 2004 presidential
election looms? On Thursday, March 11, from 5 to 7 pm in
Wellesley College's Library Lecture Room, top national education
experts will examine that question in a panel discussion,
"Town Hall Meeting on Education and the 2004 Presidential
Elections: Letters to the Next President." Speakers
include Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential
Schools.
The
event, which is free and open to the public, has been organized
by Wellesley first-year student Rosa Fernández, who came
to campus last fall already an author. Her essay appears
in a 2004 book from Columbia Teachers College Press called
Letters to the Next President: What We Can Do About the
Real Crisis in Public Education.
The
book features a prologue by actor and comedian Bill Cosby,
an epilogue by the late Senator Paul Wellstone, and includes
essays from some of the best thinkers of our times. Fernández's
essay, "Journey to a New Life," is the lead chapter in the
book. Each panelist for the Wellesley event also contributed
a chapter.
"The
Education Department has helped me to organize an event
at Wellesley with five national education figures," said
Fernández, who will speak on the panel along with:
- Ted
and Nancy Faust Sizer. In addition to founding the Coalition
of Essential Schools, Ted Sizer is a university professor
emeritus at Brown University and visiting professor of education
at Harvard and Brandeis. He is author of Horace's Compromise:
the Dilemma of the American High Schools and The
Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract,
co-authored with his wife, educator Nancy Faust Sizer, a
member of the Wellesley College Class of 1957. The Sizers
are founding trustees of the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential
School in Devens, Mass.
- Leslie
Hergert, a senior project director at the Education Development
Center and director of the National Commission on Service-Learning.
- Pam
Solo, an internationally acclaimed proponent of grass-roots
activism and founder and president of the Civil Society
Institute, which supports community involvement in public
life.
- Louis
Casagrande, president of the Children's Museum, Boston,
who helped to create the award-winning Museum Magnet School.
"In
the 1990s, education resurfaced as a key issue in presidential
politics," said Wellesley Professor of Education Barbara
Beatty, who will moderate the panel. "Like other recent
presidents, George W. Bush has called himself an 'education
president.' His controversial No Child Left Behind Act is
the most sweeping piece of federal education legislation
in almost 40 years. Education should be a big issue in the
2004 election, but will it be drowned out by concerns about
terrorism and the economy? This Town Hall Meeting is an
opportunity to hear some leading experts discuss their opinions
and for the community to voice its views on what we think
the candidates should do about education."
Corri
Taylor, director of the college's Quantitative Reasoning
Program, said the forum will offer suggestions for improving
education. "We are fortunate to be able to bring together
these leaders in education policy, individuals who are not
only passionate about creating a better education system
but also know the long hard steps that must be taken to
make improvements," she said.
Eighteen-year-old
Fernández hopes the panel will go beyond providing answers
to engaging the audience in an open discussion. "We will
focus on what should be an American education for all the
citizens of our democracy and how an American education
either promotes or inhibits democratic citizenry," she said.
The
event is sponsored by Wellesley's Education Department and
Quantitative Reasoning Program. For more information, call
781-283-3235.
Since
1875, Wellesley College has been a leader in providing an
excellent liberal-arts education for women who will make
a difference in the world. Its 500-acre campus near Boston
is home to 2,300 undergraduate students from all 50 states
and 68 countries.
###
|
