Ebony Magazine and the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute co-host an education roundtable.

A panel of some of the nation’s most distinguished voices on education discuss the public education crisis and how best practices from all sources – public, charter and private schools, as well as the emerging educational technology sector – can transform the nation’s K-12 schools. The goal of the roundtable is to reengage the community on educational issues, and to identify at-hand tools that teachers and parents can use to better prepare their children for the future in a challenging knowledge economy.

Panelists
Tamron Hall (moderator) MSNBC.
Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for the Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education
Shayne Evans, director, University of Chicago Charter School’s Woodlawn Secondary Campus
Paul Goren, the Lewis-Sebring Executive Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research
Ron Huberman, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools
Tim King, President and CEO of Urban Prep Academies
Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College.

President Robert J. Zimmer and Linda Johnson Rice, chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., parent company of Ebony, offer welcoming and introductory remarks.

Zimmer said that open inquiry and examination is one way for the United States to make progress on some of the challenges that face K-12 education around the country. “The work of the Urban Education Institute centers around the open examination of data to inform educational decision-making, teacher training, and school operation and instruction,” Zimmer said. “The education of our youth is one of the most important things that we do as a society.”

Ebony magazine, the No. 1 magazine for African Americans, is published monthly and reaches more than 10 million readers with each issue. Published by Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., the largest black-owned publishing company in the world, Ebony magazine was founded in 1945 by the late publisher and chairman John H. Johnson. Linda Johnson Rice is chairman and CEO.

The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute was established to create knowledge to improve the trajectory of children’s lives nationwide. UEI directly operates four charter school campuses, prepares teachers and leaders for success in an urban environment through its Urban Teacher Education Program, and conducts research that’s connected to problems of practice in schools through the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

The University of Chicago, which held its first classes in 1892, is home to faculty and students who have earned a reputation for fearless inquiry, interdisciplinary scholarship and the creation of new fields of study. The University is associated with 85 Nobel Prize winners, reflecting the institution’s leadership in a wide range of research, literature and social thought. Working in one of the world’s great cities, scholars at the University of Chicago ask tough questions, engage the world around them, and pursue knowledge with rigor and a belief in the transformative power of ideas.

Recorded Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at International House.