"Nothing changed" at the DOE
Sadly, I couldn't make it to the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum this year. So I was much interested in this report from the Forum on Education and Democracy and particularly on Pedro Noguera's keynote speech.
Pedro Noguera has had plenty of access to Obama administration policy makers. In fact, he sat down with 50 people from the U.S. Department of Education, who listened to his thoughts for 90 minutes.
"Then I left and nothing changed," Noguera, a Convener with The Forum for Education and Democracy, said in an opening address last week at the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum. "I realized that the Obama administration was staying the course not just in Afghanistan, but in education."
Forum director George Wood was named as CES's new executive board director and announced that the November, 2011 Fall Forum will be held in Providence, R.I.
Noguera is also quoted in yesterday's WSJ on Mayor Bloomberg's selection of Cathie Black and NYC's new chancellor.
"There needs to be some form of checks and balances," said Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University. "Mayoral control can't mean that the mayor is the only one who makes major decisions."
We missed you, Mike! Hope you can be there in Providence next year.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jill. I'll start saving up my air miles and hotel coupons now.
ReplyDeleteI was at the Fall Forum keynote speech by Pedro Noguera, and I found it to be both inspiring and empowering. One of the key ideas I personally took from the speech was the fact that policymakers outside of education are making all the decisions for us, and Noguera has advocated for educators to be part of the conversation. He also called education "The Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century." Of course, when I heard that, I immediately thought of our students, but I think it could also apply to educators. We have been disenfranchised from our own system.
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