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Harvard Graduate School of Education

The Askwith Education Forum, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is endowed through the generosity of Patricia Askwith Kenner and other members of the Askwith family, and acts as a galvanizing force for debate and conversation about education in its narrowest and broadest perspectives. Each year, the Forum welcomes a number of prominent people from diverse fields to speak about issues relevant to education and children. Recent topics have included immigration, values, affirmative action, education reform, and the arts. All of these events are free and open to the public.break

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/askwith

A Nation Reformed or a Nation at Risk?

Wed, Feb 19, 2003

This discussion, led by some of the contributors to the recently published book, *A Nation Reformed?*, in response to the 20th anniversary of the release of *A Nation at Risk*, focuses on the educational gains and losses of the last 20 years. The panel is moderated by the book's editor, David Gordon, and includes Timothy Knowles, deputy superintendent for the Boston Public Schools; Kim Marshall, former principal of Boston's Mather Elementary School, now with New Leaders for New Schools; Jeff Howard, founder and chair of the Efficacy Institute; and Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science Emeritus, Harvard University, and a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education which produced *A Nation at Risk*.

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Another World: Alternative Ways to Globalization

Fri, Feb 28, 2003

Panelists explore alternative and constructive pathways to globalization in "Another World Is Possible", the culminating forum of the Student Research Conference. Speakers include Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at MIT, Mel King, former Massachusetts State Representative, Carolina Contraras, Somerville High School Atrevete organizer, Dayanna Fernandez, Somerville High School Atrevete organizer, Leonida Zurita Vargas, Quechua Community organizer from Rural Bolivia, and moderator Melissa Chabran, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Liberal and Conservative Theories on Urban School Change

Mon, Mar 15, 2004

Charles Payne of Duke University, and author of *I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Movement* discusses "A Curse on Both Their Houses: Liberal and Conservative Theories of Urban School Change."

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18,190 Days: Brown v. Board of Education

Fri, Mar 5, 2004

On the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, this panel discussion considers the topic "18,190 Days of (de)Segregation: How Far Have We Come?" with Angelo Ancheta, Mitchell Chang, Vanessa Siddle Walker, and Charles Willie.

Civil Rights Movement Series

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Harvard Graduate School of Education
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson

Thu, Nov 20, 2003

In "Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson", author Gore Vidal takes readers to a time when America's founding fathers fought and worked to create a new country. Among Vidal's revelations: Benjamin Franklin believed the Constitution was flawed and predicted it eventually would fail; that the Revolution was kept alive only by the force of Washington's personality and "the cleverness of our diplomats" (including Franklin, Jefferson and Adams) in convincing France to come to America's aid.

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W.B. Yeats: The Arch-Poet

Wed, Dec 10, 2003

Roy Foster speaks about the final volume in his acclaimed biography W.B. Yeats, A Life, Volume II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939. **Roy Foster**is the Carroll professor of Irish history at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Hartford College. He is author of numerous books including Charles Stewart Parnell and Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life.

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Louis Menand: Pragmatism's Three Moments

Thu, Feb 12, 2004

Louis Menand lectures on pragmatism, a distinctly American philosophy based on experience and experiment rather than fixed principles. Louis Menand, professor of English and American literature and language in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty, is the author of *The Metaphysical Club* (2001), an exploration of American pragmatism that examines the transformation of American intellectual thought from 1865 to 1919 and explores the development of the pragmatism philosophy.

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College Sports and Educational Values

Mon, Dec 1, 2003

William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students, as described in their book, *Reclaiming the Game*. Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. They examine the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies *The Shape of the River* and *The Game of Life*, the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at 33 academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "under-perform." In other words, they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades.

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Education Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Thu, Feb 10, 2005

Helen Ladd and Edward Fiske speak about their recent book, *Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa*, which tells the story of South Africa's efforts to fashion a racially equitable state education system out of the ashes of apartheid. Fiske and Ladd describe and evaluate the policy strategies that South Africa pursued in its quest for racial equity. They draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made in school finance, teacher assignment policies, governance, curriculum, higher education, and other areas.

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Closing the Nation's Racial Achievement Gaps I

Thu, May 5, 2005

Organized by the Achievement Gap Initiative (AGI) at Harvard University, this series kicks off a forum entitled Race, Culture, and K-12 Achievement Gaps. Popular discourse among national leaders has assumed that some black and Latino youth are embedded in a culture that is oppositional to achievement and that this culture is a major impediment to narrowing the nation's achievement gaps. The speakers present a more complex picture, identifying issues upon which future research will be helpful, and suggesting some practical implications of the emerging research consensus. Panelists include Prudence Carter, assistant professor of sociology, Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Ronald Ferguson, lecturer of public policy, Kennedy School of Government; and Mica Pollock, assistant professor of education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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