CONVERSATION SIX
Racing to the Top after Leaving No Child Behind: A Bottom-Up View of the Federal Role in Urban Education
Presenter:
Executive Director
Annenberg Institute
for School Reform
Time:
Location:
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New Report
How Well Are New York City Schools Preparing Students for Success in College?

2010 is a critical year for New York City public education: education policy for years to come will be shaped by decisions about school governance, budget cuts, the outcomes of mayoral and city council elections, and the increased high school graduation standards.
To offer insight into these challenges, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform is hosting a six-part series of public conversations and research studies to investigate key issues facing the city’s schools and propose policy changes to address them.
Public Conversations
Each conversation includes a researcher-led presentation; commentary from practitioner, parent, and youth discussants; and an open conversation with the audience. Conversations are open to the public.
Research and Policy Analyses
Scholars in education, economics, public policy, and child welfare, in collaboration with Annenberg Institute staff, conduct research analyses and develop policy recommendations on the key issues. The final papers will be published on this Web site.
For more information contact the Annenberg Institute at 212-328-9280.
This series of conversations and policy papers is supported by funding from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.
About the Series
part one: February 2009
Confronting the New High School Graduation Standards
Norm Fruchter, Senior Scholar, Annenberg Institute for School Reform
John Jackson, President, Schott Foundation
Presentation and discussion of findings from a report by the Coalition for Educational Justice, arguing that many more NYC students will fail to graduate under the stricter Regents standards.
> More on this presentation and research
part two: April 2009
How Well Are New York City Schools Preparing Students for Success in College?John Garvey, Former Associate Dean for Collaborative Programs at CUNY
Garvey demonstrated that a majority of NYC students entering the CUNY junior college system require remedial courses in basic skills; and even students who do well in Regents courses in NYC high schools are not ready for the rigor of college classes.
> More on this presentation and research
part three: september 22, 2009 at 4:30pm
New York City’s Small Schools Experiment: Who's Benefiting?
Jennifer Jennings, Harvard University (aka )
Aaron Pallas, Teachers College, Columbia
Nowhere has the approach of restructuring large comprehensive high schools been implemented as broadly as in New York City. Since 2000, 27 large comprehensive high schools have been closed and reopened as campuses of small schools. This session will look at the consequences of the small schools approach: Do the students who attend the new schools have different characteristics, on average, than students in other schools in the city or in the schools they replaced? How do remaining comprehensive high schools change as nearby schools are closed?
The research presentation will be followed by commentary from a school principal and the director of a community-based organization who were deeply involved in the transition from a large comprehensive high school to a small schools campus, and will lead into an open discussion with parents, teachers, students, principals, organizers, advocates, scholars, and policy makers.
> Power Point Presentation
part four: December 14, 2009
Building Local Leadership for Change: A National Scan of Parent Leadership Training Programs
Anne T. Henderson, Senior Consultant, Community Organizing and Engagement, Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Increasingly, parent and community engagement is being viewed by education researchers, activists and funders as essential for sustaining school reforms that will result in increased student achievement. Across the country, a variety of sponsors ranging from local community organizations and statewide advocacy groups to school districts and state legislatures, have offered leadership training to help parents and community members improve their local schools, and/or participate in organizing and developing systemic policy and practices changes at school or school district levels.
This presentation will review significant institutes that train parents to become advocates for improving public education, effectively fulfill governance roles in public education, be more fully engaged in public education, and/or participate in community organizing for school reform. Based on these findings, a set of recommendations with be put forth for the parent training center that is part of the new New York City school governance legislation.
> Power Point Presentation
part five: January 27, 2010
Can New York City Teachers be Evaluated by their Students’ Test Scores? Should they be?
Sean Corcoran, Assistant Professor of Educational Economics, New York University
In 2009, the New York City Department of Education developed a “value-added” model for measuring teacher effectiveness based on student test scores. This new measurement tool epitomizes a larger national movement to evaluate, promote, compensate, and dismiss teachers in part on the basis of their students’ test results.
Can standardized test scores be used as a meaningful measure of teacher quality? Should New York City teachers be evaluated based on their students’ performance on these tests? In this presentation, Sean Corcoran will describe some of the opportunities and challenges associated with value-added methods of assessing teacher quality. In particular, he will illustrate how standardized test scores can be used (or misused) in evaluating teachers. A particularly important issue is statistical uncertainty: because outside factors play such a large role in student progress, value-added estimates are only a crude estimate of a teacher's true effectiveness. Importantly, this uncertainty and in turn the utility of value added measures-varies across schools, grade levels, student subgroups, and communities. He concludes by assessing the potential for these new teacher assessment systems to improve student outcomes in urban school systems like New York.
> Power Point Presentation
part six: February 23, 2010
Racing to the Top after Leaving No Child Behind: A Bottom-Up View of the Federal Role in Urban Education
Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform
What are the connections and disconnections between the new federal education agenda (including national standards) and ongoing federal and local reform efforts? What are the implications for civic capacity building? Warren Simmons, executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, will lead a discussion that builds on his and others’ work in standards-based reform and on strategic support he has provided the new federal education administration and other policy-makers, as well as on his work with the Aspen Urban Superintendents Network.
> Power Point Presentation