Some of the nations leading education thinkers and policymakers will join in a round table on school reform beginning this week on the on-line service of Education Week and Teacher Magazine.
The goal of the Education Week on the Web “town meeting” is to forge a consensus about the nation’s agenda for school reform, said Liz Parker, the newspaper’s associate editor for special projects.
The forum will feature discussion via electronic mail and the Internet’s World Wide Web. Among the invited panel of about 40 leaders are school administrators, teachers, three members of Congress, academicians, corporate representatives, and parents.
The lineup includes Bob Chase, the president of the National Education Association; Deborah Meier, the noted teacher and author; U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.; Waldemar Rojas, the superintendent of the San Francisco schools; and John R. Silber, the chancellor of Boston University.
Members of the public are also invited to contribute. Anyone who registers and provides his or her e-mail address will receive the participants’ comments on questions suggested by a moderator and by the other panelists.
Messages from members of the general public will be included based on their interest and relevance to the discussion, Ms. Parker said.
The on-line forum, which was scheduled to start April 14, will continue for at least four weeks. The discussion and additional information, including a list of the panelists, will also be presented on the newspaper’s Web site at //www.edweek.org/context/meeting.
To receive the discussion by e-mail, send an e-mail message to maiser@epe.org with just the words “subscribe meeting” (without quotation marks) in the text field.
--ANDREW TROTTER
