Athens, Ga. – Some of Georgia’s top education leaders and policymakers are expected to attend the University of Georgia College of Education’s third annual State of the State of Education in Georgia Conference on Thursday, Sept. 30 at UGA’s Georgia Center for Continuing Education.
Keynote speaker Andrew J. Rotherham, co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a non-profit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students, will deliver an address titled, “Rethinking the Federal-State Relationship: Implications for States of the New Federal Role in Education.”
Rotherham writes the blog “Eduwonk.com” and also writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report. Rotherham previously served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy during the Clinton administration and is a former member of the Virginia Board of Education.
The daylong conference is open to the public. The registration fee is $75. The conference program and other details can be found at www.coe.uga.edu/SOS.
UGA Education Dean Arthur M. (Andy) Horne will open the conference at 8:45 a.m. and Rotherham will speak at 9 a.m. Featured speakers during the lunch break will include:
· State Rep. Brooks Coleman, District 97, (R-Duluth), chair, House Education Committee
· State Sen. Dan Weber, District 40 (R-Lawrenceville), chair, Senate Education Committee
There will be five concurrent breakout sessions in the morning and afternoon designed to provide research findings and discuss their implications for policy and practice. Topics include:
· K-12 Funding Formula
· state pension plans
· teacher compensation and evaluation
· design of assessment
· Georgia’s move to national standards
· the vision for public education in Georgia
· charter schools in Georgia
· charters and school turnarounds
· effectiveness of small schools
· changing state and federal policies on boards of education.
The conference’s closing panel will include:
- Lynne Weisenbach, vice chancellor of the University System of the Georgia Board of Regents (moderator)
- Gary Price, managing partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Wanda Barrs, chair, Georgia State Board of Education
- Kathy Ashe, State Rep., District 56, (D- Atlanta)