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Featured Past Event
PASSION MEETS PURPOSE: Promising Pathways Through Experiential Learning
The Albert Shanker Institute, the AFT, and the Center for American Progress held a pioneering conference on experiential learning: PASSION MEETS PURPOSE: Promising Pathways Through Experiential Learning. The conference showcased the dynamic realm of experiential, hands-on learning, where students engage in immersive educational experiences that foster curiosity, exploration, inquiry, and profound comprehension. This conference highlighted various facets of experiential learning, ranging from career and technical education (CTE) to the arts, music, and action civics. Through student-centered approaches, participants delved into how experiential learning cultivates deeper understanding and equips students with the skills necessary for promising careers across diverse fields.Featured Past Event
Child Labor Exploitation: What Adults Need to Know
The Albert Shanker Institute and AFT partnered to host a back-to-school season event for educators, health care professionals, and other caring adults on child labor laws and possible warning signs of child labor infractions. We will be joined by the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
Past Events
Featured Past Event
Segregation and School Funding: How Housing Discrimination Reproduces Unequal Opportunity
Watch the discussion about the historical and contemporary relationship between racial segregation and K-12 school funding based on the Institute's new report.
Mar82017
Past Event
Promoting Children's Well-Being
Promoting Children's Well Being. This panel examined 21st century approaches to a culture of health in and with schools.
Jan112017
Past Event
AFT: One Hundred Years of Social Justice Teacher Unionism
Our panelists will examine a number of different figures and moments in the history of the AFT from a variety of different perspectives.
Dec52016
Past Event
The Challenge of Precarious Labor
To address this challenge, this conference will bring together an international body of thinkers, analysts and activists.
Nov162016
Past Event
The 2016 Elections: What Do They Mean for American Education?
Following the November 8th elections, our panel discussed their impact on American education, from a number of different points on the political spectrum and a variety of policy perspectives on American education.
Jun82016
Past Event
Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education Conversation Series 2015-2016
Sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the American Federation of Teachers, this conversation series held the second Wednesay of the month during the school year, is designed to engender lively and informative discussions on important educational issues.
Jun82016
Past Event
Educating English Language Learners in an Age of Anti-Immigrant Scapegoating
What is the appropriate response of American educators to this critical situation? What must be done to provide English language learners with the quality education that addresses their specific needs?
May182016
Past Event
The distinguished speakers discuss the current international refugee crisis and draw historical parallels with the anti-refugee sentiments in the World War II era.
May112016
Past Event
New Visions of Collective Bargaining in American Education
Our panel will investigate some of the most promising efforts on that front around the country, as teacher unions find new ways to negotiate contracts for educational innovation and improvement and build new partnerships with community around that work.
Apr132016
Past Event
Controversial new regulations for teacher education have been proposed by the U.S. Ed Dept. Although there are objections to the regulations, the controversy centers on the proposed measures of teaching performance.
Apr92016
Past Event
Education Research and Teachers Unions
Presidential Session, Washington, D.C. Panelists: Deborah Lowenberg Ball, Ellen Bernstein, Leo Casey, Susan Moore Johnson.
Apr82016
Past Event
The notion that teaching and learning are social endeavors may seem obvious. Yet, the implications of that statement for research, policy and practice are less so. This conference foregrounds recent evidence showing that social aspects of schools and school systems deeply influence school improvement.
Mar92016
Past Event
"No Excuses" Schools and the Education of Impoverished Students of Color
What do we need to provide to students in poverty, many of them students of color, to enable them to succeed in school? OOr panel will examine what this model of schooling entails and how well it meets the educational needs of impoverished students of color.
Mar82016
Past Event
Conversation on Teacher Diversity
This panel discussed why teacher diversity is important and how it can be strengthened through recruitment, retention, and continued support for teachers of color.
Feb102016
Past Event
Where We Live and Where We Learn
More than six decades after the Supreme Court declared that “separate but equal” education was a violation of the “equal protection of the law” afforded by the U.S. Constitution, American schools remain deeply segregated.
Jan132016
Past Event
Teacher Tenure: An Outmoded "Job For Life" or Essential Right to Due Process?
In this panel, we will explore divergent viewpoints by focusing on what tenure laws actually consist of, how they work in practice, how they might be improved, and, of course, their impact on important outcomes such as teacher retention and student achievement.
Dec72015
Past Event
Quality Teaching: Individual and Social Approaches
This two-panel conversation focused on the results of the annual “PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools,” and their implications for policy and practice, taking on the question of how government, schools of education, school districts and schools can promote, nurture and support quality teaching.
Watch the video.
Nov192015
Past Event
Kent Wong Conversation, Lunch and Book Signing
Join us at the AFT for a conversation, lunch and book signing with Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education
Nov42015
Past Event
Creating Safe & Supportive Schools II: Next Steps
The focus of this Good Schools seminar was to share effective policies and strategies to enhance school climate, mitigate behavior problems, and support improved performance, with special attention to supporting labor-management teams as they work to comply with new rules and guidelines on behavior management.
Nov42015
Past Event
Positive Alternatives to Suspending And Expelling Misbehaving Students in Early Childhood Education
Recent research and news reports show that even very young children--and particularly young children of color--can be subject to harsh and overly punitive school disciplinary practices. At the same time, the need for schools to be safe and orderly places to teach and to learn remains a top priority in poll after poll of parents and the public.
Oct142015
Past Event
Florida Education Reform Under Jeb Bush: Miracle or Mirage?
The panelists examined the Florida reforms and their educational impact from a variety of perspectives—from the educational frontline in classrooms and schools to the overview of system analysts.
Sep162015
Past Event
The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education
Watch the Press Conference and download the report.
Sep92015
Past Event
Ten Years After the Deluge: The State of Public Education in New Orleans
The first panel takes up the broader questions of the post-Katrina economic and political changes in New Orleans and how they shaped developments in its public schools. The second addresses the specific question of the current state of the city’s public schools.
Jul142015
Past Event
Using the C3 framework developed for teaching social studies and civics with the Common Core, this workshop will investigate the use of inquiry lessons to teach the theme of voting rights.
Jul132015
Past Event
The Use of Value Added in Teacher Evaluations
In this workshop, Matt Di Carlo discusses the strengths and weaknesses of value-added models, with a particular emphasis on their use in teacher evaluations.