EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

School integration: Are we better off 50 years after Brown v. Board?

DATE: May 7-8. Starting at noon on May 7

EVENTS: Top education and NAACP leaders will examine the progress made improving minority access to education in the 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education called for schools to be desegregated. The U-M School of Education and Programs for Educational Opportunity (PEO) will host a series of events and speakers.

Theodore Shaw, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who has argued before the Supreme Court and previously served on the faculty of the U-M Law School, will offer a national perspective on what educators have to show for the past 50 years since Brown.

Charles Moody, a former vice provost for minority affairs and the first director of PEO, will focus on the six Great Lakes states POE serves, detailing the progress and lack of progress made in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. A panel made of POE representatives from each of the six states will offer more insights and analysis.

U-M’s PEO was the first of 10 federally funded equity centers established in the 1970s to help school districts across the nation desegregate and support districts in dealing with issues related to race, gender or national origin. The team is available to work with local districts throughout the region.

For example, staffers have recently helped Detroit prepare a manual for a multicultural task force and helped improve math and reading scores for Native American students while helping set up a program to educate teachers who work with Latino students. Similar outreach efforts are underway in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, Lansing, Flint and other areas across the entire six state region.

PLACE: U-M School of Education, 610 East University, Ann Arbor.

For a map, visit: http://www.soe.umich.edu/maps/

SPONSORS: The U-M School of Education and Programs for Educational Opportunity.

WEB: For more information, visit: www.umich.edu/brown50

For more on Ted Shaw, visit: http://www.naacpldf.org/welcome/theodore_m_shaw.html

For more on Charles Moody, visit: http://www.nabse.org/charles.htm

For more on Programs for Educational Opportunity, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~eqtynet/