DATE: 4 p.m., Jan. 20, 2010.

EVENT: Roland Fryer, the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, will discuss the Harlem Children’s Zone, a program that combines community investments with reform minded charter schools.

The presentation will review the first empirical test of the causal impact of the program on educational outcomes, with an eye toward informing the long-standing debate about whether schools alone can eliminate the achievement gap or whether the issues that poor children bring to school are too much for educators alone to overcome.

In January 2008 at the age of 30, Fryer became the youngest African American to receive tenure from Harvard. He has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation, and the inaugural Alphonse Fletcher Award (“Guggenheims for race issues”).

Fryer has published papers on topics such as the racial achievement gap, the causes and consequences of distinctively black names, affirmative action, the impact of the crack cocaine epidemic, historically black colleges and universities, and “acting white.” He is a 2009 recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest award bestowed by the government on scientists beginning their independent careers.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

LOCATION: Annenberg Auditorium. 1120 Weill Hall, 735 South State St. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

CONTACT: For more information: (734) 647-4091.

SPONSORS: Education Policy Initiative (EPI) at the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.