Rice symposium focuses on challenges of public education

CONTACT: Margot Dimond
PHONE: (713) 348-6775
EMAIL: mdimond@rice.edu

RICE
SYMPOSIUM FOCUSES ON CHALLENGES OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
Are public schools
giving children a fair shake?

Three nationally
acclaimed authors address the critical challenges confronting children in public
education and offer positive approaches to overcoming them in this year’s Hazel
G. Creekmore Memorial Symposium on education at Rice University on Monday, April
22, in the Grand Hall of the Rice Memorial Center at 4:30 p.m.

“Our children: Are
public schools giving them a fair shake?” is sponsored by Rice’s Center for
Education, where all three authors conducted their research.

Angela Valenzuela,
associate professor of education and of Mexican American studies at the
University of Texas at Austin, is the author of “Subtractive Schooling:
U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (State University of New York
Press, 2000),” which won the prestigious “Outstanding Book Award 2000” of the
American Educational Research Association. She also taught at Rice University
and the University of Houston.

Valenzuela’s talk,
“Subtractive Schooling,” will focus on how forms of schooling that undervalue
young Latinos’ language and culture can be detrimental to learning.

Linda McNeil is
professor of education and co-director of the Rice University Center for
Education, which specializes in teacher development and research. Her book,
“Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing
(Routledge, 2000),” which was based on more than 15 years of research on Texas
schools, has garnered national media attention. McNeil has taught at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education and has been a visiting scholar at the Stanford
University School of Education. She has served as the vice president of the
Curriculum Studies Division of the American Educational Research Association and
is the editor of the Social and Institutional Analysis section of the American
Education Research Journal.

McNeil’s talk,
“Standardized Tests: Who Pays the Price?” will center on the way high-stakes
tests are driving many students out of school and reducing the quality of
education for those who remain.

Elnora Harcombe is the
author of “Science Teaching/Science Learning (Teachers College Press, 2001),”
which is based on her work as director of the Center for Education’s Model
Science Lab. The Model Science Lab has twice received the Governor’s Exemplary
School/University Partnership Award, sponsored by the Texas Alliance for
Science, Technology and Mathematics Education. Harcombe, who is a research scientist, has
taught science at all levels—elementary, secondary, and university.

Her talk, “The Teacher:
The Key to Powerful Learning,” will demonstrate how powerful teaching and
learning occur in classrooms where teachers are passionate about their subject
and communicate deep knowledge of their subject matter to students.

The Hazel G. Creekmore
Memorial Symposium and Curriculum Collection was established in 1993 by a gift
from the Houston Endowment Inc. to the Center for Education to honor Mrs.
Creekmore, a Rice alumna and longtime Houston teacher.

The symposium is free
and open to the public. A reception and book-signing follow the program.
To
get to the symposium, enter the Rice campus at entrance 12 off Rice Boulevard.
Turn right at the first stop sign and park in the Stadium Parking lot. A shuttle
bus offers regular service to the Rice Memorial Center.