Pioneer Presents Three Education Events

Also: For the first time ever, the Board of Education
rejects a DoE-approved charter school proposal.

The meeting revealed the anti-charter school, anti-reform tendencies of several of Governor Patrick's appointees to the Board of Education. To help navigate through this clip, here are some highlights:

0:00-0:19 seconds: Introductory remarks from Paul Reville, BoE Chair (and now Education Secretary). 

0:20-3:37: In this next must-see scene, Ruth Kaplan, the PTA representative to the Board, attacks charter schools' focus on educating students for college preparation. Despite being the PTA pick for the BoE, Kaplan clearly doesn't trust parents to choose what's best for their kids:

“But to create many schools where college is, you know, the number one goal, I think it sets some kids up for failure and that concerns me....And their families, who don’t always know what’s best for their children.” 

3:38–31:59: The final portion is longer, but very revealing. Paul Reville and his fellow charter school opponents assailed the proposed Brockton-SABIS International school.  They cited negative findings by an outdated - and long since remediated - DoE report on the Springfield-SABIS charter; criticized data-driven education (the use of assessments); and questioned SABIS’s for-profit status. Nary a word about SABIS's tremendous work to close the achievement gap in Springfield, its long student waiting lists, and the thousands of Brockton kids in under-performing schools who need a better option.
 
Key slivers: Paul Reville at (3:50); the Ruth Kaplan-Paul Reville tag team at (16:30); the Harneen Chernow-Paul Reville tag team at (25:20); and, finally, a Ruth Kaplan anti-assessment soliloquy at (29:06).

2. Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools?

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
5:00 pm, Reception to Follow
Omni Parker House
60 School Street
Boston, MA 02108

To mark the release of the Fordham Institute's latest research on the nation's Catholic schools, Fordham Vice President Michael Petrilli will discuss this valuable but threatened educational resource, and what could be done to ensure that the next generation of Boston children can benefit from an affordable, high-quality education from the city's Catholic schools.

To attend this event, please contact Melissa Dermarkar at mdermarkar@pioneerinstitute.org

3. History and Civic Education: The Learning of Liberty for Civic Life

Keynote Speaker: Gordon Wood, Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History at Brown University, and author of The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787, The Radicalism of the American Revolution and The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History

Thursday, May 8, 2008
4:00 - 7:00 PM
Boston University School of Management
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

In her book Democratic Education Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania, said that “political education — the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation — has moral primacy over other purposes of public education in a democratic society.”

How to ensure that democracy will endure has been a matter of concern since the founding of the Republic. This conference will explore the challenge of preparing citizens to embrace liberty and exercise it for the common good, both in the United States and in emerging democracies abroad.

Setting the historical and philosophical context for the discussion will be our keynote speaker, the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize winning historian Gordon Wood. Conference participants will learn about Projects in Civic Engagement, which aim to apply core principles of liberty and democracy to the education of citizens in the U.S. and abroad. These projects include We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, We the People: Project Citizen, Civitas International (Russia partnership), and Civics Mosaic (Eurasia).

The We the People and Civitas programs are directed by the Center for Civic Education in Calabasas, CA, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education under the Education for Democracy Act approved by the United State Congress. Additional support for Civitas is provided by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other sources. Civics Mosaic is directed by the Council for Citizenship Education at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY, with funds from the U.S. Department of Education.

To attend this event, please contact James Fenton at jfenton@pioneerinstitute.org

4. 17th Annual Better Government Competition 

Keynote Speaker: Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, Washington, D.C. Public Schools

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location TBD

We are pleased to announce that, in the spirit of the 17th Better Government Competition, which is focused on ideas to improve K-12 education, the keynote speaker at this year's awards dinner will be Chancellor Michelle Rhee of the Washington D.C. Public Schools. Ms. Rhee leads a district numbering 50,000 students and 144 schools. Chancellor Joel Klein, whose work in New York City's public schools is a model for effective change, said of her appointment that she is "the choice D.C. needs".

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Rhee founded and led the New Teacher Project. Her work helped improve teacher hiring in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, New York, Oakland, and Philadelphia.

Please note that we are still accepting education policy ideas as entries for the BGC. The deadline for proposals is April 7, 2008.

To purchase a ticket or learn more about the Better Government Competition Awards Dinner, please contact Melissa Dermarkar at mdermarkar@pioneerinstitute.org