Athens, Ga. – Nearly 100 state policymakers, school administrators and University of Georgia faculty will gather to hear about and discuss how the nation’s new Congress and administration may re-shape the federal role in education policy at a Friday, May 1 conference hosted by the UGA College of Education.
The conference, titled, Changing Horses or Paddling Harder? Reconsidering the State/Federal Relationship in Education Policy, will feature faculty and student research that critically examinesthe programs and policiesof the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently the No Child Left Behind Act).
UGA Regents Professor Jeremy Kilpatrick, one of the nation’s most renowned scholars in mathematics education and keynote speaker at the conference, will deliver a luncheon address titled, “Education Policy in Transition: The White Papers Project of the National Academies.”
Over the past year, Kilpatrick has co-chaired a committee on mathematics and science education for the National Academies’ “Education Policy White Papers Project,” an initiative to help policymakers in the new administration and Congress better understand key education issues and help them create more effective policies by providing them with independent, research-based information.
Kimberly Robinson, an associate professor at Emory University Law School, will open the conference with an address titled, “A New Theory of Education Federalism: How Collaborative Federalism Would Reinvent the Federal Role in Ensuring Equal Educational Opportunity.”
Robinson teaches education law and policy, and civil procedure and has extensive litigation experience from her work for the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education and Hogan & Hartson, L.L.P., in Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth DeBray-Pelot, an associate professor and associate director of UGA’s Georgia Education Policy and Evaluation Center, will follow with an address titled, “Reflections on Congress, the New Administration, and the Institutional Environment.”
The conference also will include three panels of UGA education faculty and students which will provide multiple perspectives on a range of topics including the impact of No Child Left Behind, federal legislation and the needs of subgroups, and policy design and resource allocation.
The conference, which will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Rooms K-L at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, is sponsored by EPEC in conjunction with the Georgia Assessment Center, the Learning and Performance Support Laboratory and the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education, all based in the UGA College of Education.
It is the second statewide spring conference on education policy hosted by EPEC. The center also hosted its first State of the State of Education Conference last fall.
For more information on EPEC, see http://www.coe.uga.edu/EPEC/.
