** What type of School Reform do we really need? **

** What type of School Reform do we really need? **

Friday, March 26, 6:00 PM
New York University, Silver Room 207 (100 Wash Square East)

A public discussion featuring:

Pedro Noguera -- Professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University; Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education; and co-Director of the Institute for the study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings.

Lois Weiner -- Professor in the College of Education at New Jersey City University; Editorial Board member and education editor of 'New Politics' magazine; and former long time New York City high school teacher.

Just about everyone agrees that the American education system is in bad need of fixing. This is all too clear for people who see equal access to comprehensive, high-quality schooling as a pillar of democratic society. But what kinds of reforms will help us move there? Do charter schools promise real change? How about school budgetary autonomy? No Child Left Behind? Merit pay? High stakes testing? Should we join Obama in supporting a Rhode Island school district's decision to fire every single teacher in a poverty-stricken school they deemed to be under-performing? Or are these policies actually undermining public education? Do they distract from the centrality of unequal funding? Our hope is to use this discussion to produce basic criteria for judging policy and for formulating new policies that move public education in a more democratic, comprehensive and progressive direction.

[Organized by the Radical Film and Lecture Series]