Book Talk: Education Beyond Education, Monday, 4/27, 4-6pm

The Gottesman Libraries sponsors book talks and lectures by faculty, students, staff, and others interested in sharing their work with the Teachers College community. Join us as we celebrate your achievements and promote social and intellectual discourse on key topics of relevance to the educating, psychological and health professions.

• Lecture: On the Clash of Martyrological Memories, Thursday, 4/2, 2-4pm


Jonathan Jansen, renowned scholar and the first black dean of education at the traditionally white University of Pretoria, will deliver a lecture entitled, "On the Clash of Martyrological Memories: Race, Memory, and Identity in Post-apartheid Classrooms" in connection with his latest book, Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past (Stanford University Press, 2009); this publication recounts the stories of young Afrikaners and how they changed under the new leadership of senior academics. In presenting their experiences, Jansen also reveals the depth of his personal growth in addressing the challenge of social and ethnic differences. Reparation and reconciliation, key goals in political transition, are central to leadership for social justice and knowledgeable citizenry.

Professor Jonathan Jansen obtained his PhD at Stanford University School of Education and his MS in Science Education at Cornell University. He served as the Dean of Education at the University of Pretoria until March 2007. Dr. Jansen is Honorary Professor of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, and he is a scholar-in-residence at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls at Henley-on-Klip, South Africa. He has also written Diversity High: Class, Colour, Character and Culture in a South African High School (2008, with Saloshna Vandeyar).

This event is sponsored by the Center for African Education, the African Studies Working Group, and the Gottesman Libraries.

Where: Milbank Chapel (125 Zankel)


• Book Talk: Steady Gains and Stalled Progress, Wednesday, 4/22, 4:30-6:30pm


On Wednesday, April 22, Professor Jane Waldfogel of the School of Social Work will discuss her important recent publication, Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap (Russell Sage, 2008). She will be joined by Sean Corcoran, Contributor; Michael Rebell, Executive Director of The Campaign for Educational Equity and Professor of Law and Educational Practice; and Hank Levin, William H. Kilpatrick Professor of Economics and Education, who will share their thoughts on addressing disparities in educational achievement.

Steady Gains and Stalled Progress provides new evidence on the black-white test score gap -- an important form of educational inequity. Contributors to the edited volume include Mark Berends, Mary E. Campbell, Sean P. Corcoran, Elizabeth Eiseman, William N. Evans, Ronald F. Ferguson, David Grissmer, Robert Haveman, Helen E. Ladd, Jens Ludwig, Robert V. Penaloza, Meredith Phillips, Dan T. Rosenbaum, Jacob L. Vigdor, Tina Wildhagen, and Barbara L. Wolfe. The book begins with a long term view, then turns to explaining gaps at school entry and during school, and concludes with policy implications to guide educators and administrators in closing the gap.

Jane Waldfogel is Professor of Social Work and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She is also a visiting professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics. Waldfogel has written extensively on the impact of public policies on child and family well-being. Her current research includes studies of work-family policies including family leave, inequality in early childhood care and education, and child abuse and neglect. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for the National Evaluation of Sure Start (in the UK) and was a member of the National Academy of Science's Committee on Family and Work Policies (in the US). Waldfogel received her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. She is the author of What Children Need (Harvard University Press, 2006); The Future of Child Protection: How to Break the Cycle of Abuse and Neglect (Harvard University Press, 1998); and co-editor (with Sheldon Danziger) of Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to Adulthood (Russell Sage Foundation, 2000). Her work has been published in leading academic journals including The American Economic Review, American Educational Research Journal, American Sociological Review, Child Development, Demography, Economic Journal, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Labor Economics, and Journal of Population Economics.

Sean P. Corcoran contributed a chapter with William Evans, "The Role of Inequality in Teacher Quality" (pp. 212-249). Professor Corcoran is an assistant professor of educational economics at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, and an affiliated faculty of the NYU Wagner School of Public Service. His research interests include state and local public finance, labor economics, the economics of education, and applied (micro) econometrics. Professor Corcoran is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., is the principal investigator for major grants related to the political economy of school finance from both the Spencer and Russell Sage Foundations, and was recently a 2005-06 visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. His recent publications can be found in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management; the Journal of Urban Economics; and the American Economic Review. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 2003.

Mr. Michael Rebell is Executive Director of The Campaign for Educational Equity and Professor of Law and Educational Practice at Teachers College. Previously, Mr. Rebell co-founded and served as Executive Director of The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), which won a major constitutional ruling on behalf of New York City public schools. Mr. Rebell is one of the nation's foremost authorities on the education adequacy movement in the United States and has pioneered the legal theory and strategy of educational adequacy. In the last 15 years, this legal strategy has proven successful in almost 70% of the cases challenging a state's failure to provide students with a sound, basic education. Mr. Rebell has also litigated numerous class-action lawsuits especially on behalf of students with disabilities, including the landmark New York State case, Jose P. v. Mills. He has written five books, the latest of which are Moving Every Child Ahead: From NCLB Hype to Meaningful Educational Opportunity ( 2008) (with Jessica R. Wolff), and Courts and Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity Through the State Courts (forthcoming, 2009), as well as several dozen articles on a wide range of education issues, including educational equity, education finance, testing, rights of disabled students and dropout prevention. Mr. Rebell is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

Dr. Henry Levin is the Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Co-Director of the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies in Education, and David Jacks Professor of Higher Education and Economics, Emeritus, at Stanford University. He is a specialist in the economics of education and human resources, and has published 20 books and about 300 articles on these and related subjects. At present he is doing research on educational reform, educational vouchers, cost-effectiveness analysis, costs to society of inadequate education, and educational privatization, and benefit-cost studies in education. His most recent books are: Privatizing Educational Choice (Paradigm Publishers, 2005), and The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Costs of Inadequate Education (Brookings, 2007).

This book talk is co-sponsored by The Campaign for Educational Equity and the Gottesman Libraries.

Where: 305 Russell


• Book Talk: Education Beyond Education, Monday, 4/27, 4-6pm


Writes John Baldacchino, "I have always felt that Greene urges us to take on a dialogue with her and with the myriad interlocutors that characterize her work. Yet what remains fundamental in her work is the urge to take the leap, to move beyond and to take on what is unfamiliar yet new and full of possibility." (Introduction, p.8).

In Education Beyond Education: Self and Imaginary in Maxine Greene's Philosophy(Peter Lang, 2009), John Baldacchino does just that; careful to distinguish his own voice, the author traces Maxine Green's key intellectual arguments and interprets them afresh in order to re-envisage education, avoiding a single paradigm to move readers back into the realm of learning.

On Monday, April 27th Baldacchino will discuss his latest book, offering a new perspective on cultural theory and the making of the 21st century aesthetic imagination. John Baldacchino is Associate Professor of Art and Art Education at Teachers College Columbia University. Previously he was a member of the faculty at Gray's School of Arts in Scotland and Warwick University in England. He is the author of Post-Marxist Marxism: Questioning the Answer; Easels of Utopia: Art's Fact Returned; Avant-Nostalgia: An Excuse to Pause; and Makings of the Sea: On Mediterranean Aesthetics. Baldacchino is a graphic artist and free lance political cartoonist, and he also works in two dimensional (mixed) media.

Where: 305 Russell