Capital Region Equity Summit

Equal Opportunity for All Students

On Saturday, April 30^th 2011, the UC Davis School of Education’s CRESS Center will host the Second Annual Capital Region Equity Summit. The focus will be policy, pedagogy and power in California’s schools and communities. The event lasts from 8:30 am until 3:30 pm and will be held in the UC Davis Conference Center. Registration for the summit is $65 payable at the door. The equity summit strives to teach California school administrators, teachers, service providers, community-based educators, and health providers about equity-based initiatives, ideas and possibilities. Attendees of the summit can look forward to workshops, programs and relevant materials, networking opportunities, support for creative social justice initiatives, a raffle and a light breakfast and lunch.  The program is available here.

Last year the First Annual Capital Region Equity Summit was a large success. It drew over 300 people together to initiate a regional equity discussion and create an agenda for combating inequity in our schools and communities.

This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Jeannie Oakes, director of education and scholarship at the Ford Foundation. She was the Presidential Professor in educational equity at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies until Fall 2008. During that time she directed the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access and the UC’s All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity. Her research highlighted the implications of education policies on the opportunities and outcomes of low-income students of color. Dr. Oakes has authored 20 scholarly books and monographs and more than 125 other published works.

There are fourteen workshops focusing on the themes of policy, pedagogy, and power. Among the workshops offered, Sergio Cuellar will be presenting The Campaign for Quality Education, Dr. Viki Montera will be presenting Democratic Assessment as Advocacy, and Sandy Holman will be presenting Race, Reading, and Power to the People.

This is going to be a wonderful event for educators and community members to come together to discuss an action plan for creating a more equitable environment in our schools and communities.