Public Education Innovator to Speak in Houston

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: Michael Cinelli
PHONE: (713) 831-4794

PUBLIC EDUCATION INNOVATOR TO SPEAK IN HOUSTON

The co-director of Central Park East
Schools in New York City, Deborah Meier, will speak in Houston on
Feb. 7 at a program sponsored by the Rice University Center for
Education, The Brown Foundation and The Child-Centered Schools
Initiative.

Meier will speak in the Lanier Middle School auditorium, 2600
Woodhead, at 7 p.m. on “Can All Kids Go to Good Schools? What Do We
Know That Can Make Schools Work for All Children?”

“Debbie Meier speaks from practical experience about how schools
can be transformed when everything that happens there is centered on
children and their learning,” said Linda McNeil, associate professor
of education at Rice and co-director of the university’s Center for
Education.

Ron Sass, co-director of the Center for Education, said,”Central Park East Schools demonstrate what can happen when a
visionary leader, dedicated teachers and committed parents have the
freedom to build schools around the children.”

Meier began her career as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago. Her
work as co-director of Central Park East Schools during the past 20
years has earned her honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale and Brown
universities and from Columbia University’s Teachers College.
She is the author of “The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for
America from a Small School in Harlem.”

Meier is currently leading an effort to create 50 more
innovative public schools in New York City. She is president of the
Center for Collaborative Education in New York and a fellow at the
Annenberg National Institute for School Reform at Brown University.

The program is free and open to the public. Teachers and parents
are encouraged to attend.

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