Tough Choices or Tough Times
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
University of Massachusetts Boston Campus Center
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA
Presented by the:
University of Massachusetts Boston
in cooperation with the:
Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
The University of Massachusetts Boston, in cooperation with the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, is hosting an opportunity to join Marc Tucker, President and Chief Operating Officer of the National Center on Education and the Economy and Bill Brock, former Secretary of Labor and U.S. Senator, for the formal release and presentation of Tough Choices or Tough Times, a new report developed by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Marc will be joined by three Massachusetts-based Commissioners of the report: Thomas Payzant, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools; Harry Spence, Commissioner of the Department of Social Services; and David Driscoll, Commissioner of the Department of Education, who will comment on some of the report’s major findings.
The Tough Choices or Tough Times report highlights the evolving challenges of our new global economy: American students are increasingly being surpassed academically by those in other countries while at the same time the workforce is becoming more global, putting American workers into direct competition with workers in every corner of the globe who are willing to work for lower wages. The report warns that if we continue on our current course the American standard of living will steadily fall as compared with other nations. In order to reverse these trends, the Tough Choices authors make recommendations for a revolutionary new American public education system that includes allowing students to test out of high school and into college in tenth grade, recruiting better educated teachers and paying them substantially higher salaries, abandoning local funding of schools in favor of state funding, and providing universal early childhood education.
The conference will be held at the University of Massachusetts Boston Campus Center and will allow for in-depth discussions of the recommendations found in the report. After a presentation of the report’s key findings and recommendations, a panel of international students from Massachusetts colleges and universities will discuss aspects of the global education challenge. Following that, there will be two concurrent panel discussions focusing on key areas of the report. One panel will be specific to issues affecting elementary and secondary education, while the second will focus on issues affecting workforce development. Panelists for these discussions include:
Elementary & Secondary Education Session:
Anne Wass – President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Patricia Haddad – State Representative, Commonwealth of Massachusetts (tentative)
Hannah Sevian – Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Massachusetts Boston
Karla Brooks Baehr – Superintendent, Lowell Public Schools
Maura Banta – Corporate Community Relations Manager, IBM
Moderator – Paul Reville, President, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy; Director, Education Policy and Management Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Workforce Development Session: (to date)
Paul Osterman – Deputy Dean, Sloan School of Management, MIT
Andrew Sum – Director, Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University
Conny Doty – Director, Mayor's Office of Jobs and Community Services, City of Boston
Moderator – Ray Uhalde, National Center on Education and the Economy
REGISTRATION
For more information regarding this event, or to register, please contact Kristine Doherty at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Office of Special Events: events@umb.edu or 617-287-6819.
About the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
The Rennie Center's mission is to develop a public agenda that informs and promotes significant improvement of public education in Massachusetts. Our work is motivated by a vision of an education system that creates the opportunity to educate every child to be successful in life, citizenship, employment and life-long learning. Applying nonpartisan, independent research, and civic engagement, the Center is creating a civil space to foster thoughtful public discourse to inform and shape effective policy. For more information, visit us at www.renniecenter.org.
