Published: 01-26-09
AUSTIN TX – Beginning Wednesday January 28 more than 100 school leaders and educational experts from across the state and the country will convene to talk about the state of education in Texas.
The meeting is a reunion for many of the principals who had the opportunity to attend the Harvard Leadership Institute last summer as part of a Raise Your Hand Texas effort to provide quality professional development opportunities for campus leaders.
The largest initiative of its kind in the state Raise Your Hand Texas sent 125 Texas principals to the Summer Institutes at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2008. Recognized as the gold-standard of training the Institutes exposed participating Texas public school leaders to the foremost national and international experts in the fields of education and leadership and provided them with a hands-on opportunity to work alongside renowned educators from across the country.
“It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life” said Janet Mansmann principal at Lamar Elementary in San Antonio and one of the program participants. “It was a chance to really focus on my own leadership skills to share my challenges and opportunities with my peers and then to bring those learnings back to my campus. I am so grateful to Raise Your Hand Texas for making this possible.”
The 2009 Raise Your Hand Texas Principal Leadership Conference will be held at the Hilton Hotel located on East 4th Street and promises to be an action-packed two days with a number of exciting and informative speakers. The session will open at 12 p.m. on Wednesday with a State of the State address featuring Dr. Mike Moses former Texas Commissioner of Education and David Thompson a leading education consultant.
Wednesday evening beginning at 6 p.m. The Honorable Rob Eissler Chairman of the House Public Education Committee and The Honorable Florence Shapiro Chair of the Senate Public Education Committee will provide an overview of the agenda for the 81st Session of the Texas Legislature which is now underway.
The keynote dinner address beginning at 7 p.m. on Wednesday will be given by Dr. Willard R. Daggett President of the International Center for Leadership in Education. Dr. Daggett is recognized worldwide for his proven ability to move education systems toward more rigorous and relevant skills and knowledge for all students. He has assisted a number of states and hundreds of school districts with their school improvement initiatives many in response to No Child Left Behind and its demanding adequate yearly progress (AYP) provisions.
Finally at 11:45 on Thursday January 29 the group will hear from Dr. Ronald F. Ferguson an economist and Senior Research Associate at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy who has taught at Harvard since 1983. Dr. Ferguson’s teachings and publications cover a variety of issues related to education and economic development. Much of his research since the mid-1990s has focused specifically on racial achievement gaps appearing in publications of the National Research Council the Brookings Institution and the U.S. Department of Education.
Raise Your Hand Texas is a bipartisan advocacy organization made up of taxpayers and business and community leaders from around the state who are committed to making sure that all Texas students are career and workforce ready for the 21st Century. Next summer the organization will once again send a group of principals from around the state to experience the Leadership Institute at Harvard.
To learn more and to lend your support log on to raiseyourhandtexas.org.
