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December 2007 > Events
POME Colloquium Series Concludes 2007 with NCLB Panel
Joe Nunez Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation concluded its successful Colloquium Series on Equity and School Reform, which began in fall 2006, with seven engaging public events in 2007.
The most contentious and best-attended sessions in the series, organized by POME professors Dan Perlstein, Bruce Fuller and Mark Wilson and aided by student area representatives Laurie Mireles and Leah Walker, focused on No Child Left Behind legislation.
“The Debate Over No Child Left Behind: Advancing Equity,” the final event in the series on November 20, featured a panel discussion with Joe Nunez, associate executive director of governmental relations for the California Teachers Association; Norman Yee, vice president, San Francisco School Board; Russlynn Ali, vice president, The Education Trust and executive director, The Education Trust-West, and GSE students Funie Hsu and Angeline Spain.
In March, Sandy Kress, a former education adviser to President Bush and a lead figure in the creation of the No Child Left Behind Act, defended the legislation in front of a jampacked audience in Tolman Hall room 2515. The Meet the Press–style panel discussion also included Boalt Hall School of Law professor Goodwin Liu, National Public Radio/KQED FM reporter Kathryn Baron and Mireles. A lively question-and-answer session followed opening remarks, with most of the audience and panel members expressing frustration with the accountability features of the legislation, currently being considered for reauthorization in Congress.
Another well-attended talk was given by UCLA’s Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor in Educational Equity and director of the University of California’s All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity and Institute for Democracy, Education & Access. Oakes discussed the low college participation rates of California’s African American, Latino and American Indian students, and the K–12 school conditions that help explain them. With the audience, she discussed a variety of policy recommendations for removing the educational roadblocks that unfairly impede these students.
Mark Rashid, chair of UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) and a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis, and GSE professor David Stern, who is UC Berkeley’s representative on the committee, gave the final presentation of the Spring 2007 term. Stern offered an overview of UC systemwide eligibility and campus selection procedures as well as their shortcomings. Rashid highlighted the admissions proposal that was unanimously approved by BOARS. This proposal, which will require passage by UC’s Board of Regents to take effect, eliminates the use of the statewide eligibility index to guarantee admission, and instead offers a guarantee to review the entire application of any student above a basic threshold (e.g., meeting “a-g” requirements), and encourages such students to apply. The proposal continues guaranteed admission only for Eligibility in the Local Context students (the top 4 percent of students in each participating California high school class).
Lisa Chavez, the academic coordinator for UC Berkeley’s Center for Latino Policy Research, rounded out the Spring Semester program with a talk titled “Preparing for Transfer: Latinos in California Community Colleges.”
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