Second annual Pell Education Policy Seminar

Policy seminar Feb. 9 will examine the making of excellent teachers

The Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University is sponsoring a policy seminar that will consider the steps needed to prepare, recruit and support excellent teachers. NPR's Claudio Sanchez will moderate a panel of educators and policy-makers who will gather from 4 to 6 p.m. Feb. 9 in Sayles Hall.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --The second annual Claiborne Pell Education Policy Seminar, to be held at Brown University Monday, Feb. 9, 1998, will examine how best to cultivate excellent teaching in American schools.

The seminar, titled "Equity and Excellence: Teaching for All Children," will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. in Sayles Hall on the College Green. It is sponsored by the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University (the LAB), a program of the University's Education Alliance.

Claudio Sanchez, the award-winning education reporter for National Public Radio, will moderate a panel of educators and policy-makers who will discuss the short-term steps and long-term strategies needed to prepare, recruit and support excellent teachers. Panelists are:

• Vermont Sen. James Jeffords, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and a leader in the Senate on education issues;
• R.I. Sen. Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources;
• Rudolph F. Crew, chancellor of the New York City Public Schools;
• Sonia Nieto of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, a professor who specializes in multicultural and bilingual education and in curriculum studies;
• Marc Hull, Vermont commissioner of education;
• Barbara Kelley, an elementary school physical education teacher in Bangor, Maine, and chairwoman of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards;
• Bill Dandridge, dean of the School of Education, Lesley College.

Editors: Several of the panelists will be available to speak with reporters before the start of the seminar. Contact the News Bureau for details.

Topic of the seminar

A 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, issued by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (which can be read on the World Wide Web at www.tc.columbia.edu/~teachcomm/what.htm), contained five major recommendations:

• Develop teaching standards that link to student learning standards.
• Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development.
• Overhaul teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom.
• Encourage and reward teaching knowledge and skill.
• Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.

In a November 1997 follow-up report, Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching, the commission seeks to "gauge the nation's progress toward the goal of high-quality teaching in every classroom in every community."

"Teachers are the key to what students learn," said Phil Zarlengo, executive director of the LAB. "Therefore, the professional development of teachers is at the heart of education. If school reform is to be effective, teachers must have the leading voice in how they are prepared, recruited and supported. The second annual Pell Seminar brings together an outstanding group of policy-makers and educators to discuss the strategies we can employ to produce not only excellent teaching, but also systemic reform and greater equity in education."

The seminar is named for retired U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, a long-standing national leader in education policy.

The Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University

The LAB at Brown, one of a network of 10 federally supported educational laboratories sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is a program of the Education Alliance at Brown University. The regional educational laboratories ensure that those engaged in improving education at the local, state, and regional levels have access to the best available knowledge from research and practice.

The LAB's mission is to improve teaching and learning and advance systemic school improvement by building capacity for reform, and by building strategic alliances with key members of the region's education and policy-making community.

The LAB, which serves Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, makes current research available to policy-makers and schools through workshops, publications and computer media, and engages in on-going research with practitioners throughout the region. It maintains a web site at www.lab.brown.edu