Pasi Sahlberg speaking at Wellesley on October 13!

The 2016 Diane Silvers Ravitch series this year brings Pasi Sahlberg! From the Wellesley College posting:

His talk, entitled “The Inconvenient Truth About American Education Reform,” will address some of the problematic and unintended consequences of approaches to reform in the American education system.
 Sahlberg is a Finnish educator and scholar. He worked as a teacher, teacher educator, and policy adviser in Finland and was actively engaged in planning and implementing education reforms in Finland in the 1990s. His research interests include international education policies, educational change, teacher education, and classroom teaching and learning. In this lecture, Sahlberg will discuss the critical importance of teacher professionalism, collective autonomy, and trust, and argue that the most important educational ideas behind Finland’s success are borrowed from American public schools. 

October 13, 2016 at 7:30 PM in the Diana Chapman Walsh Alumnae Auditorium
Sahlberg spoke at the MASBO Annual Institute in May. 

Douglas Gagnon on Equity, Schools, and The American Dream

Just got this: at Holy Cross tomorrow afternoon!

Join us for a free, public lecture by
Douglas Gagnon
Tuesday, February 9, 2016 | 4:30 PM | Rehm Library

---

America has long been seen as a place where the luck of birth should not dictate one’s chances of success in life, and broad support for the American Dream remains unequivocal — as does the belief that public schooling must play an important part in promoting social mobility. Yet evidence suggests that life beginnings may be more powerful than ever in predicting life outcomes. 

In this presentation, Douglas Gagnon, a research associate at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy, will review what we know about social mobility in the U.S. and ask how schools contribute to, or slow the process of, growing inequities in our country. Presenting analyses of his and the work of others, he will examine the state of equal opportunity in our nation’s schools, describing what we might expect from equity-oriented education policy in the near future.

Gagnon, who holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of New Hampshire, recently spent a year with the Delaware Department of Education as a Data Fellow through Harvard's Strategic Data Project, and has also worked on research projects with the Center for Assessment in Dover, N.H.  

His talk at Holy Cross is co-sponsored by the Education Department and the McFarland Center.

edit: and hey, this one looks interesting...
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Equity, Schools, and Testing: What National Achievement Scores Do and Don't Tell Us — Educational historian Ethan Hutt, assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland, will explore the origins and implications of talking about educational achievement — and educational equity — in national terms, and by relying on standardized test scores. Co-sponsored with the Education Department.
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library

Analogies

Having Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson lecture on "Ethics and Education" is like having______ lecture on______.

Tip: they couldn't be less qualified.
Wondering how that whole D.C. cheating investigation went? It fizzled.

Jonathan Kozol in Cambridge on September 19!

Jonathan Kozol is the  Mary Ann Hardenbergh Memorial Lecturer this year, speaking on September 19 on "Fire in the Ashes: Public Schools Under Siege: Victims and Survivors."
Citizens for Public Schools is sponsoring this lecture at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, Cambridge.
Tickets are for sale here.


Anyone want to ride in together from Worcester?