Democratizing Education:

The powers of diversity and collaboration

How can we broaden the narrow passageways to higher education opportunity and success for all of our children? Join us to hear Professor Lani Guinier answer that question and talk about her new book, The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America on October 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the historic 12th Baptist Church, 150 Warren St., Boston, MA 02119. (Registration and book sales will begin at 6:30 p.m., and the program will start at 7 p.m.) After the talk and some time for discussion, questions and answers, there will be an opportunity to buy Professor Guinier’s book and get it signed. Click here to register online today!

Professor Guinier is an author, scholar and champion of equal educational opportunity and civil rights. She is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship at that institution.   → Read More

There were so many of us — parents, students, teachers, school committee members, higher educators, former members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education — that they  had to move the hearing on testing reform bills to a larger space. And we filled that one too!

It was a full day (seven hours!) of powerful testimony for a moratorium on high-stakes testing. Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts and CPS member Barbara Fields was quoted in the Globe saying “The overuse and misuse of high-stakes testing has resulted in the denial of diplomas [to] economically disadvantaged children who desperately need a high school diploma to access a pathway out of poverty.”

CPS member Lou Kruger had the committee members on the edge of their seats. The Globe reported that “Louis J. Kruger, a professor of educational psychology at Northeastern University, said an MCAS score is not enough by itself to accurately assess student performance.   → Read More

WBUR Learning Lab’s Peter Balanon-Rosen came to hear Jonathan Kozol at CPS’s event May 6 and has four takeaways, including this:

Join us to hear Jonathan Kozol, author of Fire in the Ashes: Public Schools Under Siege — Victims and Survivors, Letters to a Young Teacher, The Shame of the Nation, Savage Inequalities and many other books, beginning with Death at an Early Age in 1967.

We’re excited to host this inspirational author, educator and activist on Wednesday, May 6, 7 pm at First Parish in Cambridge, in Harvard Square.

Click here to register today.

Jonathan will turn his fierce intellect and passion to the crisis facing public education and the children it serves, speaking on “Race, Poverty & and Corporate Invasion of Our Public Schools.”

We look forward to hearing Jonathan’s analysis of the challenges faced by our public schools and the impact of corporate “reforms” on our children and communities. Get ready to be moved and inspired to action by the power of his words and his example as a fighter for educational justice and equality.   → Read More