Conference Agenda
(Subject to Change)
Friday, May 5, 2006
8:30 - 9:00
Registration (Walter K. Gordon Theater)
9:00 - 10:30
Session 1 (Walter K. Gordon Theater)
- Welcome
- Margaret Marsh, Dean College of Arts & Sciences
- Opening Remarks
- Nyeema C. Watson, Associate Director Center for Children and Childhood Studies
- Annette Knox, Superintendent Camden City Public Schools
- Setting the Course for the Day
- Moderator - Dr. Dan Hart, Director Center for Children and Childhood Studies
- Panelist
- Dr. Jean Anyon - City University of New York
- Dr. Joshua Aronson - New York University
- Dr. Amanda Lewis - University of Illinois
- Richard Kahlenberg - Century Foundation
10:45 - 12:15
Session II
- Workshop I — A New Paradigm for Urban Education Reform
(Walter K. Gordon Theater)
Jean Anyon will provide a new paradigm for urban education reform in cities like Camden. She will first demonstrate how public policies (such as those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, and federal transit) create and maintain poverty in minority urban neighborhoods. Educational policy - and urban education reform as presently conceived - cannot transcend or compensate for the effects of these public policies. Anyon will argue that we must consider a paradigm for reform that will replace these public policies with more equitable ones, so that urban school reform can have positive consequences for low-income students. - Workshop II — The Nurture of Intelligence
(Multipurpose Room - Campus Center)
Human intelligence is more fragile than we tend to think. It is fragile because it is in most situations a social transaction, which occurs within a web of social relations, which are sometimes problematic. In this talk, Joshua Aronson will discuss one social force that undermines people's academic achievement— stereotypes alleging the intellectual ability of certain minorities. Such stereotypes often create an atmosphere of threat, mistrust, and low expectations. In this atmosphere, academic achievement, motivation and the self-concepts of minority students is often undermined. He will highlight how these social forces explain part of the achievement gap between minorities and whites. He will also discuss research that shows us how to help students at risk for under-performance.
12:30 - 1:30
Lunch (Campus Center)
1:30 - 3:00
Session III
- Workshop I — Socioeconomic School Integration
(Multipurpose Room - Campus Center)
Public schools that educate poor students separately from other students do not normally provide an equal, or even an adequate, education. Students in high poverty schools are surrounded by peers with the smallest dreams, parents who tend not to be active in the schools, and teachers who are, on average, not as good as those found in middle-class schools. Richard Kahlenberg will discuss how through public school choice, a number of communities, from Raleigh, North Carolina to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, are providing all children with the opportunity to attend good, middle-class public schools, with very positive results. - Workshop II — Explaining Racial Inequality in Educational Outcomes
(Gordon Theater)
In this session Amanda Lewis will focus on the current dimensions of racial inequality in our schools, exploring the nature of racial differences in school experiences as well as competing explanations for racial differences in outcomes. She will examine the unintended consequences that common sense understandings about race and racial difference can have on educational practice as well as the role of macro level racial dynamics. The goal will be strategize the kinds of information, skills and strategies needed to ensure that all children have the opportunity to succeed and thrive.
3:15 - 4:00
Book Signing (Campus Center)
- Books will be available for purchase
- Jean Anyon - Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform
- Jean Anyon - Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and New Social Movement
- Amanda Lewis - Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities
- Richard Kahlenberg - All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice
4:30 - 6:00
Keynote Speaker - Dr. Pedro Noguera, Professor of Teaching and Learning, Steinhardt School of Education New York University
(Gordon Theater)
Dr. Pedro Noguera's research focuses on the ways in which schools respond to social and economic conditions within the urban environment. He has engaged in collaborative research with several large, urban school districts, and he has published and lectured on topics such as youth violence, race relations within schools, the potential impact of school choice and vouchers on urban public schools, factors contributing to student achievement and secondary issues resulting from desegregation in public schools. His articles on these topics have appeared in several leading research journals and edited volumes. His first book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education, was published by Teachers College Press in September of 2003. His latest book, Unfinished Business : Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools, published by Jossey-Bass, is set for release March 2006. Dr. Noguera is Professor of Teaching and Leaning at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.
• City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education
• Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Out Schools