Dear colleagues and friends, You are cordially invited to join the upcoming webinar/seminar in the Marketization and Privatization in Education seminar series in Vancouver.
The next session is with Dan Cohen on Schooling markets: Promoting market-forms in the contested terrain of education. (Please see Abstract and Bio below.) Hope you can join us.
For RSVP, assistance, or if you would like a video recording of the presentation, please send a message to Ee-Seul Yoon: eeseul@gmail.com
Location: Levis Center, 919 W. Illinois St., Urbana, IL 16801, United States
Teach For America (TFA) has played a significatn role in shaping the discourse and practices within education reform. What does TFA mean for the future of teacher training and retention, policy decisions effect teachers and students, closing the achievement gap, etc.? Join us for a lively and balanced panel discussion. Hear from a TFA executive, TFA alums, and education activists and reserachers.
Panelists: Josh Anderson (Executive Director, Teach For America - Chicago), Stephanie Saclarides (Ph.D. Student, UIUC, TFA Alumna, Phoenix), Maggie Evans (Ph.D. Students, UIUC, TFA Alumna, Chicago), Katie Osgood (Ph.D. Student, UIC, Educator and Activist), and T. Jameson Brewer (Ph.D. Student, UIUC, TFA Alum, Metro-Atlanta)
Schedule:
Thursday, October 3, 2013:
8:00 a.m. BREAKFAST
9:00 a.m. Welcome & Introduction James Anderson, University of Illinois, UC
9:30 a.m. Presentation #1 Keith Lewin, University of Sussex
10:30 a.m. Presentation #2 Prachi Srivastava, University of Ottawa
11:30 a.m. Presentation #3 Patricia Burch, University of Southern California
12:45-2:00 BREAK
2:00 p.m. Presentation #4 Joel Windle, Monash University
3:00 p.m. Presentation #5 Alvaro Hypolito, University of Pelotas
3:50-4:15 SNACKS
4:15 p.m. Presentation #6 Geoff Whitty, University of Bath
Friday, October 4, 2013
8:00 a.m. BREAKFAST
9:00 a.m. Presentation #7 Pauline Lipman, University of Illinois, Chicago
10:00 a.m. Presentation #8 Ee-Seul Yoon, University of British Columbia
11:00 a.m. Presentation #9 Bekisizwe Ndimande, University of Texas, SA, Christopher Lubienski, University of Illinois, UC
Abstracts:
Presentation 1
Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in the role that for-profit private providers of educational services can play in universalising access to basic education. The mechanisms suggested include promoting "low cost private schools for the poor" and supporting the public financing of privately managed schools using vouchers. Neither offers a panacea to complex problems and there is much special pleading. The case for continued emphasis on public financing and provision of basic education to promote equitable development remains compelling. This paper sets the scene for the debates about whether private schools for the poor makes sense and identifies five questions that need to be answered before deciding policy. It addresses these questions to those who have yet to understand that markets cannot deliver rights, paying school fees is inappropriate for households below the poverty line, and that modern social democracies have a social contract with their citizens to promote public goods.
Presentation 2
Low-fee private schooling is a provocative topic in the literature on privatization in education. Its emergence in developing countries in view of the right to education and acknowledged shortfalls in education quality have led to a polarised debate. Proponents argue that low-fee private schools are more efficient and of better quality than state schools, the most extreme, calling for the state’s retreat in provision. Others argue that the right to education confers the responsibility for education for all on the state, with the imperative to increase access and quality, and that paying for basic education is inherently iniquitous. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the global research evidence on low-fee private schooling in developing countries since the early research activity on the sector nearly a decade ago. It interrogates the evidence regarding issues of affordability, quality, and equity.
Presentation 3
This paper analyzes the fast rise of digital education in K-12 public education and the commercial interests pushing this tide. I argue that digital education has great potential for transformative education in disadvantaged communities. However, as of yet, it has yet to deliver on that promise. Disadvantaged communities still have very limited access to learning technologies relative to wealthier communities. Beyond this first level of access, the digital education being sold to disadvantaged communities generally does not equate with expanded learning opportunities. For example, a company may decide for reasons of cost not to have a live teacher, leaving children and their families without the supports they need to master content. Through adroit use of theory and skilled empirical analysis, I identify specific ways that markets can corrupt the potential of digital education. I also consider how practitioners and policymakers can build a new public dialogue around the needs of disadvantaged communities and the companies profiting from the digital wave.
Presentation 4
More Australian schools compete with others for students than in almost any other education system (OECD, 2010). A large private school sector and differentiation amongst government schools create a quasi-market generates anxiety for the mainly middle-class parents who participate actively in school choice (Campbell, Proctor, & Sherington, 2009). However, the burden of school choice as a social logic is felt most heavily in the education of socially disadvantaged students. This paper addresses a number of ways in which this burden is felt through a study of the transition from primary to secondary school in three socially disadvantaged and ethnically diverse Melbourne suburbs. The study shows that government schools catering to socially disadvantaged families struggle to maintain student numbers and social mix in enrolments. In response, such schools divert effort and resources away from classroom teaching and into image management and selective recruitment. Second, families are left with a heavy burden in time and resources needed to identify and assess available educational options, with teachers unwilling to say which is a ‘good’ school and information provided about schools often confusing and opaque. Third, socially disadvantaged families pay a moral price in the form of guilt for not sending their children to private schools, which the processes of marketization elevate to normative status. They are left paying again, financially, for the cheaper and more accessible alternative of private tutoring colleges. I introduce the term ‘marginal market participation’ to theorise the involvement in school choice of, and social costs paid by, socially disadvantaged families and schools.
Presentation 5
This presentation analyzes modes of managerialism as State structuring and its effects on education, particularly on school governance, curriculum, teachers’ work, and students’ achievement. Managerialism pursues criteria based on productivity, consumer-based models, decentralization, efficiency, accountability, evaluation, public-private partnership and quasimarket. This neoliberal model of school reform inducts an acceptance and consensual behaviors, which are productive to build market-based - performativity. However, such policies have adversely affected marginalized and poor communities because market based reform tends to discriminate against poor populations. For instance, the managerial educational policies promise high quality education, improving public education particularly for social groups in poverty, but their effects on students’ achievement have been cruel depending on social class background. For decades inequalities in education remain an important issue, mainly for disadvantaged students. I conclude that there are many indicators to show that those policies have been extraordinarily expensive to the public funding and have not been so effective to improve education quality as promised.
Presentation 6
This paper reviews various education policies introduced by New Labour in England in the years 1997 to 2010, including both marketizing and standardizing measures. It assesses the extent to which these policies have contributed towards a narrowing of longstanding achievement and participation gaps in English education. The paper explores inequalities in educational outcomes by class, ‘race’ and gender, but particularly the socioeconomic inequalities that have been at the centre of recent policy concerns in England.
After reviewing overall patterns of performance, the paper goes on to assess the impact of a number of specific policies. It suggests that there is credible evidence that some of these policies did help to narrow the socioeconomic achievement gap. However, apart from in the case of academies (charter schools), the gains seem to have been derived from initiatives that run counter to the central thrust of recent neo-liberal policies that see school improvement as coming through market competition and parental choice among autonomous schools.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the policies now being pursued by the Conservative led coalition government that replaced New Labour in 2010 and of the extent to which these policies are likely to reduce or exacerbate continuing attainment gaps. In conclusion, it points to the limited impact that educational interventions alone have on patterns of achievement in English society - even in periods of economic boom let alone economic austerity - and suggests that new measures of attainment are now being employed by government are likely to reopen the gaps.
Presentation 7
The protracted economic crisis provides an opportunity to unlock public schools as an investment sector through expansion of charter schools and other forms of privatization. The constructed “fiscal crisis” of the state provides a warrant for city governments to close public schools, eliminate elected school governing bodies, and dismantle whole school systems, as is underway in Philadelphia and Detroit, replacing them with charter schools. Citing budget deficits, city governments are “downsizing” school districts through massive school closings and budget cuts while simultaneously expanding privately-run charter schools.
This is an acceleration of market-driven restructuring of U.S. public education, particularly in urban areas, that is constitutive of broader neoliberal urban political and economic restructuring, its socio-economic imaginaries, and the class and race inequalities and exclusions they generate. In the context of multiple crises, the local state increasingly deploys coercion as a mode of governance, targeting working class and marginalized communities, and unionized public education workers. In this paper, I argue that the policy complex that produces charter school expansion is constitutive of racialized coercive neoliberal urban governance, i.e., expropriation of Black urban space and public goods and disenfranchisement of African American and Latino communities. Privately run charter schools, displace public schools that are often one of the few remaining public spaces and public institutions anchoring African American and some Latino Communities under extreme economic and social distress and disinvestment. The replacement of publicly governed public schools (in Chicago through elected Local School Councils) with privately-operated charter schools, and the process itself of closing public schools and replacing them with charter schools, disenfranchises marginalized communities, eliminating any community control of schools. Thus education privatization is not simply economic but social and political.
In Chicago, where 50 public schools were closed this spring and per pupil budgeting and budget cuts threaten to strip many remaining schools of essential programs and staff even as the mayor commits to opening 60 new charter schools, is an exemplary case. Drawing on research in Chicago, and with reference to other urban school districts, I argue this serves capital accumulation and racial exclusion and containment but that it is also the focus of intense, and increasingly broad-based, contestations of neoliberal urbanism itself.
Presentation 8
School choice in Canada is little known to the world. In part, this is due to the absence of a national education department and a subsequent incoherence of school choice policy across the provinces and school districts. Nonetheless, school choice is growing in Canada, especially in the major urban centers. Vancouver, one of the largest urban school districts in Canada has seen a growing trend of school choice in the last two decade or so. This paper, thus, focuses on the district of Vancouver to assess how school choice affects the two most disadvantaged youth groups residing in the most marginalized parts of the city: (1) aboriginal students, and (2) low-income immigrant youths from families with limited linguistic, social, and cultural capital. My assessment of equity in school choice is based on a critical ethnographic study which I conducted to examine how young people (ages 11-19) make meanings of school choice policy in the radically changing local context of Vancouver. My research utilized a critical socio-phenomenological approach. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 59 secondary school students, analyzed relevant policy and media documents, and conducted observations of 16 information evenings and two secondary schools. After a comparative analysis between the two disadvantaged youth groups and their counterparts, one identified as a highincome immigrant group and the other as a white middle-class group, I conclude that, while the current school choice model in Vancouver generates financial imbalance and further a negative reputation of the schools where the disadvantaged youths study, what are the most strikingly negative effects of school choice on the disadvantaged youths are profoundly symbolic and are the most detrimental to their imaginations. I analyze these effects using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic domination, and my own theory of imaginary capital, which helps conceptualize the ways the market system deprives the marginalized youths of the opportunities for the imaginative practice to consider their futures in relation to the changing social imaginary. I conclude that, to reimagine school choice policy for the most vulnerable students, we must rethink how the policy affects young people’s imaginations beyond the current focus on academic performance.
Presentation 9
In the neoliberal era policymakers see market style mechanisms such as consumer choice and competition between providers as more effective remedies for some of the intractable social challenges in market democracies. And yet countries with deep and institutionalized racial divisions have seen such mechanisms operate in both intended and unintended ways. In this analysis we examine the role of choice programs in both undercutting and advancing efforts to desegregate educational systems in two highly segregated nations — post-apartheid South Africa and post-Brown United States. A review of the use of such programs shows that in the United States, choice was first used as a mechanism by segregationists to avoid integration. Although it has since been embraced by progressives and liberals because of its potential to eradicate racially defined political boundaries, in fact it has been more recently used by minority communities moving towards greater self-segregation. On the other hand in South Africa, choice was initially used by the way segregationists seeking to avoid Black communities, but more recently has been embraced by Black families seeking to access better resourced schools. Consequently in both cases we see choice as a serving a primary function of advancing socioeconomic segregation within what are increasingly two-tiered systems.
Bios:
Ee-Seul Yoon, Ph.D. has recently defended her PhD dissertation, entitled Being chosen and performing choice: young people engaged in imaginative and constrained secondary school practices in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is currently a Sessional Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. She has a keen interest in exploring how public schools are reimagined under the forces of neoliberal globalization. In particular, she is interested in studying the practice and policy of school choice and its contradictory effects on public education and young people’s imagined futures in the rapidly polarizing and diversifying urban context.
Bekisizwe S. Ndimande, Ph. D. is Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interests span the fields of curriculum, education policy, multicultural education, children’s rights, and immigrant education. He has published several journal articles and book chapter, including Parental Choice: The liberty principle in education finance in post-apartheid South Africa, in W. Feinberg & C. Lubienski (Eds.), School Choice Policies and Outcomes; Race and Resources, Race Ethnicity and Education; and Lutas Docentes nas Escolas Públicas para negros na África do Sul pósapartheid, Cadernos de Educação. Dr. Ndimande has collaborated with scholars from Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and Northern Ireland
Álvaro Moreira Hypolito. Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Educational Policies in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil. His research interests are in the fields of curriculum, education policy, and teachers’ work. He has several publications, mostly in Portuguese and Spanish, including journal articles: Teachers´ Work and Professionalization: The promised land or dream denied? Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies; Gestión escolar democrática: una construcción contextualizada en escuelas municipales de la ciudad de Pelotas, RS, Brasil. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa; books: Docencia: trabajo, clases sociales y género. Lima/Peru: Fondo Editorial; and book chapters: Educational Restructuring, Democratic Education, and Teachers, in Mary Compton; Lois Weiner. (Org.). Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions - stories for resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Multiracial Reality, White Data: the Hidden Relations of the Racial Democracy and Education in Brazil. In: Grant, Carl; Lei, Joy. (Org.). Global Constructions of Multicultural Education: Theories and realities. Dr. Hypolito has collaborated with scholars from Angola, Portugal, Spain, USA, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and Chile.
Prachi Srivastava, Ph.D. , is an Associate Professor at School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Her main research area is the private sector in education and private schooling in developing countries. Dr. Srivastava has published in the areas of private non-state actors in education and development; education in India; education governance and reform in developing and conflict-affected countries; and international education policy discourse. She coined the term, 'low-fee private schooling', and is among the first researchers to undertake original empirical work on such schools in India, where she has conducted research for over a decade. She has recently been awarded a major grant as Principal Investigator from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to study 'new/non-traditional' non-state actors and the right to education in India. She was earlier, Lecturer, Centre for International Education, University of Sussex, ESRC Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford, and served with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Dr. Srivastava has provided expertise to a number of government agencies and international organisations, including the Canadian International Development Agency, the UK's Department for International Development, and UNESCO. Her most recent book is 'Low-fee Private Schooling: aggravating equity or mitigating disadvantage?' (Symposium Books, Oxford, 2013). She may be reached at: prachi.srivastava@uottawa.ca. Her full profile is on: www.prachisrivastava.com
Geoff Whitty , Ph.D., was educated at the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. He taught in primary and secondary schools before working at Bath University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, King's College London, Bristol Polytechnic and Goldsmiths College, University of London. He joined the Institute of Education, University of London as the Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education in 1992 and served as its Director between 2000 and 2010. His many publications include Sociology and School Knowledge (Methuen, 1985), Making Sense of Education Policy (Sage, 2002) and Education and the Middle Class (Open University Press, 2003), and he is currently working on a new book on educational disadvantage. He is now the Institute’s Director Emeritus and a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Bath and Birmingham, UK. He is also a past President of the British Educational Research Association.
Patricia Burch, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Dr. Burch received her BA in English from Oberlin College in 1985, her MA in Education from Harvard University in 1991, her MA in Sociology from Stanford University in 1998, and her PhD in Education from Stanford University in 2000. Over the past decade, Dr. Burch has conducted major studies and evaluations of K-12 education reform such as SAGE (the Wisconsin class-size initiative), systemic instructional reform in large urban school districts (Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia), professional development reforms (Chicago Philadelphia, New York City), and school-linked services (West Virginia, New Mexico, Boston, and San Diego). Burch studies the drivers, policies and effects of education contracting in K-12 education and the implication for access and quality for low-income students in urban areas. Her book, Hidden Markets: The New Education Privatization, was published by Routledge in 2009. It examines the role of private firms as influences in the design and implementation of K-12 education policy and how public education is being transformed “below the radar” by new forms of privatization. Her forthcoming book Equal Scrutiny: Privatization and Accountability in Digital Education, co-authored with Annalee Good, will be published by Harvard Education Press in 2014.
Pauline Lipman, Ph.D., is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Director of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education at the University of IllinoisChicago. Her teaching, research, and activism grow out of her commitment to social justice and liberation. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on race and class inequality in education, globalization, and political economy of urban education, particularly the inter-relationship of education policy, urban restructuring, and the politics of race. Pauline is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports. Her newest book, The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City (Routledge, 2011), argues that education is integral to neoliberal economic and spatial urban restructuring and its class and race inequalities and exclusions as well as to the potential for a new, radically democratic economic and political social order. Her previous books, High Stakes Education and Race, Class and Power in School Restructuring, received American Education Studies Association, Critics Choice Awards. In 2011, she received the American Education Research Association Distinguished Contribution to Social Contexts in Education Research, Lifetime Achievement Award. Pauline is on the coordinating committee of Teachers for Social Justice – Chicago and is active in coalitions of teachers and community organizations. She is a co-director of the Data and Democracy Project and has co-led various collaborations with community organizations to produce policy reports that bring to light educational injustices. She is a frequent contributor to community forums of parents and teachers in Chicago and nationally.
Joel Windle, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at Monash University, and has recently taken a faculty position at Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil. He taught in French and Australian schools, and lectured in sociology and education in both countries before commencing his position at Monash University. He is a leading researcher in the field of comparative sociology of education, and analyses the implications of cultural diversity for pedagogical and social relations across institutional setting. His specifically has an interest in social inequalities in education, cultural and ethnic dynamics of educational engagement, language pedagogy, and comparative sociology and mixed-methods approaches. He currently holds an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (Australian Research Council) and is working on several grant projects. Windle has published numerous works regarding the implications of school choice. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and the Université de Bourgogne in France.
Keith Lewin, D.Phil., is the Professor of International Education and Development at the University of Sussex. He founded the International Masters programme at Sussex and has Directed the Centre for International Education for 17 years. He is a specialist in educational planning, economics and financing, teacher education, and science education policy. He has extensive experience of education systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, and China and has worked extensively with DFID, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, AusAID, and many national governments. He was a co-convenor of roundtables on financing education at both the Jomtien (1990) and Dakar (2000) World Conferences and was senior advisor on educational financing for expanded secondary education to the World Bank Secondary Education in Africa programme, and for Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan in India. Since 2005 he has directed the DFID supported multi-country Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) which has involved over 150 researchers across nine countries and has produced 23 new PhDs and extensive research outputs (see www.create-rpc.org). He sits on the research board of the Privatisation of Education Research Initiative (PERI) of the Open Society Foundations.
Christopher Lubienski, Ph.D., is a Professor of education policy, and the Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois. He is also a fellow with the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado and Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia. He is convener and co-director of the World Education Research Association’s International Research Network on “marketization and privatization in education.” His research focuses on education policy, reform, and the political economy of education, with a particular concern for issues of equity and access. His current work examines organizational responses to competitive conditions in local education markets, including geo-spatial analyses of charter schools in post-Katrina New Orleans, and research on innovation in education markets for the OECD. After earning a PhD in education policy and social analysis at Michigan State University, Lubienski held post-doctoral fellowships with the National Academy of Education and with the Advanced Studies Program at Brown University. He was recently named a Fulbright Senior Scholar for New Zealand, where he studies school policies and student enrollment patterns. He is lead PI of a multi-year project on intermediary organizations’ ability to influence the use of research evidence in the policymaking process (with Elizabeth DeBray and Janelle Scott). He has authored both theoretical and empirical journal articles on questions of innovation and achievement in school choice systems, including peer-reviewed articles in the American Journal of Education, the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Policy, and the Congressional Quarterly Researcher. His work has been featured in news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, La Liberacion, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Education Supplement, and Business Week. In addition to School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives (with Walter Feinberg, SUNY Press, 2008), Lubienski recently published The Charter School Experiment: Expectations, Evidence, and Implications (with Peter Weitzel, Harvard Education Press). His new book is The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (with Sarah Theule Lubienski, University of Chicago Press).
Cosponsored by: The College of Education / The Graduate College / Center for Advanced Study / The Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership / The Department of Curriculum and Instruction / The Institute of Government and Public Affairs / Center for African Studies / The Hewlett International Conference Grants Program / European Union Center / The O’Leary Fund
Location:
Temple Buell Architecture Gallery, Achritecture Building
608 East Lorado Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820, United States
Comments
Nice
Submitted by Chris (not verified) on Wed, 10/02/2013 - 10:13
Good job Tiffany Puckett and Jameson Brewer on putting this together!
meritocracy
Submitted by shani (not verified) on Tue, 10/08/2013 - 11:10
Under the Research Areas for Meriocracy, I recommend the following.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/guinier.html
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/guinier/publications/dollars_sense.pdf
Presented by:
Dongwoo Kim
Doctoral Student
Department of Economics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Room 210A Education Building, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
A brown bag seminar
We analyze how shootings in high schools affect schools and students using data from shooting databases, school report cards, and the Common Core of Data. We examine schools’ test scores, enrollment, and number of teachers, as well as graduation, attendance, and suspension rates at schools that experienced a shooting, employing a difference-in-differences strategy that uses other high schools in the same district as the comparison group. Our findings suggest that shootings significantly decrease the enrollment of students in grade 9, test scores in math and English, and the number of suspensions. We find that homicidal shootings reduce enrollment and test scores, with no statistically significant effect for suicidal shootings. Using restricted student-level data from California, we confirm that the effects on student outcomes operate through students remaining enrolled and not only through a composition effect.
Dongwoo Kim is a doctoral student in the Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Presenter: Erik C. Ness, Assistant Professor, Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia
Location: Room 242, Education Building, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois
Do policymakers rely on research evidence during the legislative process? If so, do they use research to shape policy or merely to reinforce their preferred solutions? What are their preferred sources of evidence? What are the effects of governmental structures on research use? We know surprisingly little about these questions, especially given the mounting evidence and experience with varied education policies. This comparative case study examines the role of research in higher education funding process in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Findings suggest that the uptake of research evidence, with considerable variation across states, is influenced by differences in governmental and organizational structures, regional compacts, partisan information sources and inter-state policy networks.
Sponsored by the Higher Education Collaborative Series supported by the Timpone Family Fund
Co-sponsored by the Forum on the Future of Public Education, the Ubiquitous Learning Institute, and the Office of Community College Research and Leadership.
This workshop is appropriate for K-12 school leaders, and registration is required.
Registration Fee: $150
Hilton Garden Inn, Champaign, IL
Dr. Scott McLeod
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership
University of Kentucky
This workshop will help school leaders understand and act on new developments that are transforming learning, teaching, and schooling. Particular emphasis will be placed on operationalizing larger concepts into concrete actions by local school systems. Participants should bring a laptop and be ready for an extremely active, hands-on day of thinking, discussing, and action planning.
This workshop is supported by the Richard E. and Ann M. O’Leary Fund
For more information contact Jason Taylor at taylor26@illinois.edu
Dr. Scott McLeod
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership
University of Kentucky
Whether we like it or not, the Internet and other digital technologies are transforming educational research, information dissemination, individual authority, and organizational visibility. This interactive discussion will focus on the implications of technological disruptions for researchers' scholarship, impact, and learning.
Dr. Bragg’s seminar will focus on pathways to and through college for adult, nontraditional, and underserved students, including postsecondary preparation and transfer.
Levis Faculty Center, 3rd Floor, 919 W Illinois Street, Urbana, IL
3:00pm-4:30pm, Symposium
4:30pm-5:00pm, Reception
Laura Perna, Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
This presentation discusses lessons learned from a five-state policy review project about the connections between public policy and changes in higher education performance. The five states in the project are Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, and Washington. The presentation will focus on addressing the following questions:
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Laura W. Perna is Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her current scholarship draws on multiple theoretical perspectives and a variety of analytical techniques to understand the ways that social structures, institutional practices, and public policies separately and together enable and restrict college access and success, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities and individuals of lower socioeconomic status. Her research has been supported by grants from U.S. Department of Educations Institute for Education Sciences, Lumina Foundation for Education, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, American Education Research Association, Association for Institutional Research, and University of Maryland General Research Board. She is currently serving as Vice President of the Postsecondary Education Division of the American Educational Research Association and as Project Director of the Institute for Education Sciences-funded Pre-Doctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-Based Research in Education. She holds a B.A. in psychology and B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters of Public Policy and Ph.D. in education from the University of Michigan.
This symposium is supported by the Richard E. and Ann M. O’Leary Fund
This event is open to the public. For more information contact Jason Taylor at taylor26@illinois.edu
Forum Director Dr. Debra Bragg sat down with Dr. Easton to discuss the importance of research on public education and the role of IES.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois
This topic will be the focus of the Third Annual Educational Theory Summer Institute (ETSI), held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from August 15-17, 2011. The journal Educational Theory (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/Educational-Theory/) is pleased to acknowledge The Forum for the Future of Public Education (http://forum.illinois.edu/) as co-sponsor of this year’s event.
Educational Theory has commissioned a team of outstanding scholars to produce fresh and substantive statements on this pressing issue. Their papers will appear as a special issue of the journal. The 2011 participants are:
During the first two days of the institute, participants will workshop each other's papers in internal sessions with Educational Theory staff. The institute will culminate, on Wednesday, August 17th, with an all-day open conference, featuring the scholars above and other area scholars (to be announced). All of those interested in education and the possibilities of a shared moral vision are invited to attend (contact Jane Blanken-Webb, blankenw@illinois.edu, for further details).
Levis Faculty Center, Second Floor, 919 W Illinois Street, Urbana, IL
Click on the links below to access PowerPoint resentations from the Symposium
2:00pm-4:00pm, Symposium
4:00pm-5:00pm, Reception
Dr. Bruce Johnstone, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo
Discussants:
Walter McMahon,Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jennifer Delaney, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This presentation begins with ten nearly worldwide complaints and problems that are attributed to colleges and universities, followed by ten truths or facts, some of which are both contested and awkward. The talk then focuses on four worldwide dilemmas, which are: (1) the worsening financial austerity of institutions and systems, (2) the widening gap between the have and the have not institutions, (3) the inability of most economies to provide high-paying high-knowledge-content jobs to all of the rising numbers of university graduates, and finally (4) the persistent and widening gap between those who enter college academically well prepared, interested, and ambitious, and those who enter with little or none of these attributes.
This symposium is supported by the Richard E. and Ann M. O’Leary Fund
This event is open to the public. For more information contact Jason Taylor at taylor26@illinois.edu
Illinois Room, Illini Center, 200 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL
In The Charter School Experiment, a select group of leading scholars sets out to survey the past, present, and future of this dynamic area of education reform. Contributors with varying perspectives on the charter movement carefully evaluate how well charter schools are fulfilling the goals originally set out for them: introducing competition to the school sector, promoting more equitable access to quality schools, and encouraging innovation to improve educational outcomes. They explore the unintended effects of the charter school experiment over the past two decades, and conclude that charter schools are entering a new phase of their development, beginning to serve purposes significantly different from those originally set out for them.
At this symposium, Christopher Lubienski and Peter Weitzel, co-editors of The Charter School Experiment: Expectations, Evidence, and Implications, Harvard Education Press (2010), and chapter authors will examine charter school research, highlighting major themes and challenges. A panel will react to the remarks and present additional perspectives. The symposium will conclude with an opportunity for Q&A among the speakers, panelists, and audience.
This symposium is supported by the Richard E. and Ann M. O’Leary Fund
Welcome and Introductions:
Mary Kalantzis, Dean, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Speakers:
Christopher Lubienski, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Peter Weitzel, Program Coordinator, University of Illinois at Springfield
Gary Miron, Professor, Western Michigan University
Janelle Scott, Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Panelists:
Pauline Lipman, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
Greg Richmond, President & CEO, National Association of Charter School Authorizers
Andrew Broy, President, Illinois Network of Charter Schools
Moderator:
Debra Bragg, Director, Forum on the Future of Public Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This event is open to the public and a box lunch will be provided. RSVP REQUIRED. RSVP to Jason Taylor (taylor26@illinois.edu) by March 8, 2011.
Book cover description of The Charter School Experiment:
When charter schools first arrived on the American educational scene, few observers suspected that within two decades thousands of these schools would be established, serving almost a million and a half children across forty states. The widespread popularity of these schools, and of the charter movement itself, speaks to the unique and chronic desire for substantive change in American education. As an innovation in governance, the ultimate goal of the charter movement is to improve learning opportunities for all students—not only those who attend charter schools but also students in public schools that are affected by competition from charters.
Room 22 Education Building, 1310 S. Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820
Many aspects of Illinois' educational system make it a compelling place to conduct educational research. However, difficulty accessing state longitudinal data tends to hamper interested education researchers. With federal funds spurring the integration of Illinois' P-20 data systems, now is the time to consider ways in which education researchers can access to state data to inform the policymaking process. Speakers at this event will:
Basic lunch provided. Please RSVP to pweitze2@illinois.edu
Featured speakers will include:
John Evans, Ph.D
Director of Information Systems, University of Illinois
Member, Illinois Longitudinal Data System Advisory Committee
David Smalley, M.Ed.
Assistant Director for Research
Eric Lichtenberger, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Illinois Education Research Council
Debra Bragg, Ph.D.
Director, Forum on the Future of Public Education
Professor, Higher Education
Peter Weitzel, M.Ed.
Graduate Assistant, Forum on the Future of Public Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
I Hotel and Conference Center, 1900 South 1st Street, Champaign, IL 61820
Description: The Institute will bring together local, state, and national education leaders and government officials to explore innovations that are expected to shape the future of P-20 education in Illinois, including innovations specified in Illinois’ Race to the Top (RTTT) application.
ATTENTION: We are no longer accepting applications for the O'Leary P-20 Institute. The application deadline was June 11th and selection of participants has already been completed. Thanks for your interest. We hope to make the O'Leary Institute an annual event, so check back next spring. If you would like to get direct notice of Forum events and summaries of recent education policy news, sign up for our e-newsletter here.
Designed to provide an intensive learning experience, the Institute will identify 32 exemplary educational leaders from the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels through a rigorous application and selection process. These individuals will work closely with leading practitioners, policy makers, university “critical friends,” and other partners to consider opportunities and challenges associated with recent developments influencing the full spectrum of education, such as national standards, performance management systems, technology, and finance. Individuals selected to participate in the Institute will have their registration, lodging, and food paid by the College of Education and the Richard E. and Ann M. O’Leary Endowed Fund.
The goals of the P-20 Leadership Institute are to assist education leaders to understand and critically examine:
The Institute will be led by Dr. Debra Bragg, Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education, and Dr. Nicholas Burbules, Director of the Ubiquitous Learning Institute. To apply to the Institute, submit the attached Application Form by email no later than Friday, June 11, 2010. Do not hesitate to call or email the Forum on the Future of Public Education if you have questions about the Institute by contacting Dr. Debra Bragg at 217-244-9390 or forum@education.illinois.edu.
If you are interested in attending the P-20 Leadership Institute, please complete this application and email the appropriate documents back to us at the addresses provided in the document.
This page provides some background on this draft of the Illinois Research Agenda and includes links to the research questions. The linked pages allow comments where you can provide feedback on that section of the draft Research Agenda. You can also download all of the research questions as a Word doc, add comments and email it back to us at forum@education.illinois.edu
What is the Illinois Education Research Agenda and how did we get here?
Successful research collaboration will require key stakeholders to define core priorities and focus on answering those key questions. There are countless challenges in our educational system, and it simply is not possible to examine all of them with equal thoroughness simultaneously. A research agenda for the state is needed to help channel our energies toward the problems which have the greatest consequences for the largest number of students.
The development of such an agenda is not a task to be taken lightly or completed quickly. The incredible breadth of educational stakeholders and types of educational problems requires an extended discussion over what questions should be the key areas for policy learning at this time. The State of Illinois is blessed with a wealth of talent and capacity in educational leadership and research. On November 17, 2009, the Forum on the Future of Public Education hosted 84 education researchers, agency leaders, and other stakeholders for an engaging discussion of possibilities and challenges associated with Illinois P-20 longitudinal data system. Working groups organized by area of expertise identified and discussed the key research and policy questions in their respective educational fields, and expert panels suggested guiding principles for Illinois' research efforts. Following this meeting, participants were given the opportunity to comment further on the notes from the working groups. The Forum on the Future of Public Education then drew on these recommendations as well other research and policy initiatives in Illinois to produce a first draft of the Illinois Educational Research Agenda.
First draft of the Illinois Research Agenda
This document is a humble attempt to outline the core educational policy questions for Illinois at this time. This draft is focused primarily on the reforms included in Illinois' Race to the Top application. Additional sections to the agenda may be added at a later time to better address issues in early childhood and post secondary education. The agenda is organized into five sections, listed below.
TWO WAYS TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK:
Five Policy Areas for the Research Agenda
Answering the research questions below will help the state of Illinois design better systems to (a) train pre-service teachers and offer relevant clinical training, (b) transition new teachers into their roles and retain them in hard-to-staff schools, and (c) identify struggling teachers and improve their instructional skills through professional development, coaching, and performance management.
There is a comment field below, please be sure to include your name, organization, and the question you are referencing. We welcome and encourage your comments.
Pre-Service Teacher and Leader Education
Teacher Recruitment and Induction/ Leadership Cultivation
Teacher Evaluation and Professional Development
Next Steps: Preliminary Descriptive Studies and Data Element Needs
Before the aforementioned research questions can be answered, researchers and data system designers may need to address the following preliminary questions.
Illinois has certainly taken positive steps in developing new plans, assessments, and pilot programs, but it is unclear if these efforts will make a substantial difference in college and career readiness and program completion. The following research questions will help guide this line of inquiry and aid in the development of future policies.
There is a comment field below, please be sure to include your name, organization, and the question you are referencing. We welcome and encourage your comments.
Indicators and Interventions
Access and College Attendance
Understanding school turnaround presents a substantial challenge to researchers who often aim to isolate particular problems, interventions, and effects. School failure is a complicated, chronic, and contextualized problem, meaning that approaches that are successful in one district may not be effective elsewhere. For this reason and others, existing research on school turnaround is relatively limited. Answering the following questions will help Illinois leaders identify what resources and interventions are needed to permanently change the trajectory of our state’s lowest performing schools.
There is a comment field below, please be sure to include your name, organization, and the question you are referencing. We welcome and encourage your comments.
Partnerships and Resources
In the last decade, the range and quality of assessments in education has continued to improve, but there remains a substantial gap in our knowledge about how assessments are currently used in schools and how they should be used to improve student outcomes. Illinois is home to a number of leading researchers in assessment and performance management, and focused collaboration among these researchers, state agencies, and participating districts can help us close this crucial knowledge gap. The following research questions will help guide this work.
There is a comment field below, please be sure to include your name, organization, and the question you are referencing. We welcome and encourage your comments.
Interim Assessments and Informing Instructional Practice
Assessment Content
Policy Levers
Improving overall achievement and closing achievement and attainment gaps in Illinois will require creating a policy context that supports professional learning communities and constant instructional improvement. Addressing the following research questions will help policymakers better understand existing barriers to the implementation of best practices in instruction and craft appropriate supports and interventions.
There is a comment field below, please be sure to include your name, organization, and the question you are referencing. We welcome and encourage your comments.
As the closing panel suggested, defining 4-6 areas of top priority will help us focus the research agenda and later put it into action. The five research priorities listed above were drafted based on the input of Summit panelists, state agency representatives, and Forum leaders. Do you agree with these priorities? Would you frame or define these priorities differently or include different priorities altogether? Comment boxes are provided at the bottom of the page. Please provide your name and institution at the start of your comment.
The Research Agenda will guide the state’s efforts to shape educational policy, engage in research that addresses critical problems, and support capacity building at the state and local levels. The Agenda will focus Illinois’ research on the following areas:
The Forum will conduct at least two rounds of comments and revision to the Research Agenda. This first round is primarily focused on generating feedback from policymakers and the research community. However, all educational stakeholders are welcome to provide feedback. Do these research questions cover the key education policy issues facing Illinois? What is missing? What should be excluded or rephrased?
In the long run, the utility of the Illinois Research Agenda will depend on the quality of feedback and input we receive during its development. This draft is undoutedly flawed, and we greatly appreciate your taking time to improve this document. Please contact us at forum@education.illinois.edu or the number below if you have any questions.
Hilton Hotel, Ambassador Room, 700 E. Adams St., Springfield, Illinois
On November 17, 2009, the Forum on the Future of Public Education hosted 84 education researchers, agency leaders, and other stakeholders for an engaging discussion of possibilities and challenges associated with Illinois P-20 longitudinal data system. Working groups organized by area of expertise identified and discussed the key research and policy questions in their respective educational fields, and expert panels suggested guiding principles for Illinois' research efforts.
The P-20 Summit had three goals:
SUMMIT FOLLOW-UP DISCUSSION:
Currently, Forum personnel are preparing an initial report from the Summit by analyzing information gathered and by asking participants to reflect on and refine the notes from the working groups. We realize that discussion time at the Summit was limited and that many participants have expertise and interests in multiple areas. We want to make sure that the initial report reflects the best thinking of Summit participants on as many topics as possible. We would greatly appreciate your input and feedback on the following sections.
Core Research Priorities
As the closing panel suggested, defining 4-6 areas of top priority will help us focus the research agenda and put it into action. Five suggested research priorities are included at the link below. Do you agree with these priorities? Would you frame or define these priorities differently or include different priorities altogether?
Discussion: Illinois' Core P-20 Research Priorities
As the closing panel suggested, defining 4-6 areas of top priority will help us focus the research agenda and later put it into action. The five research priorities listed above were drafted based on the input of Summit panelists, state agency representatives, and Forum leaders.Do you agree with these priorities? Would you frame or define these priorities differently or include different priorities altogether? Comment boxes are provided at the bottom of the page. Please provide your name and institution at the start of your comment.
The Research Agenda will guide the state’s efforts to shape educational policy, engage in research that addresses critical problems, and support capacity building at the state and local levels. The Agenda will focus Illinois’ research on the following areas:
Working Groups: Key questions and framing in each research area
The initial Summit report will include a page of recommendations and research questions from each of the 10 working groups. At the links below you will find a template for the Summit Report and the raw notes from the working group. Click the appropriate link below to view your group’s notes and provide feedback. In addition to refining the research questions, please suggest some brief text to frame this area of research and explain the importance of the particular issues associated with it.
Additional resources:
The Higher Education Summit brought together leaders from government, business, civic organizations and education in a discussion of higher education's role in the state. More than 160 were registered for the October 2007 event at the Chicago Cultural Center.
The summit was sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IGPA, the U. of I. College of Media, and the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the Urbana-Champaign campus.
Results from a public perception survey were shared at the event. While a large majority of Illinoisans say higher education is very important to achieve success, most of them believe the state's colleges and universities are good but not great, according to a survey conducted for the University of Illinois.
On the other hand, a substantial majority of respondents support investing more state money in higher education, even if it means investing less in other areas.
The survey, conducted by Knowledge Networks for the University of Illinois' Higher Education Summit, found that only about 11 percent of Illinoisans believe the quality of education at public four-year colleges and universities is excellent.
At the same time, about 73 percent of Illinois residents view a college education as very important to achieving success, but are worried about rising tuition costs. Only about 44 percent believe the value of higher education is worth the cost.