FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carol Pendergast
University Center for Teacher Education
(805) 756-5330
Nationally Known Educator To Speak at Cal Poly
May 7
on Rebuilding Public Education in California
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Nationally known educator and author Linda
Darling-Hammond will present “Rebuilding K-12 Education in California”
on May 7 as the inaugural lecture in the newly endowed Hesser Lecture
Series of Cal Poly of Cal Poly’s University Center for Teacher
Education.
Her talk, at 5 p.m. in the Business Building Rotunda (Room 213), is free
and open to the public.
San Luis Obispo County Superintendent of Schools Julian Crocker will
also comment on the topic with reference to local concerns.
George and Yola Hesser, alumni of Cal Poly’s University Center
for
Teacher Education, have pledged $250,000 to endow the Hesser Lecture
Series at Cal Poly’s University Center for Teacher Education. The
series
will focus on major educational issues facing public schools and teacher
education.
Darling-Hammond’s career has focused on school redesign, state
education
reform and issues of equity and access. She is the Charles E. Ducommun
Professor of Education at Stanford University and principal investigator
for the School Redesign Network and the Stanford Educational Leadership
Institute.
She was the founding executive director of the National Commission for
Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report,
“What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future,” catalyzed
major
policy changes across the United States to improve the quality of
teacher education and teaching.
Among her more than 200 publications is “The Right to Learn: A
Blueprint
for Creating Schools that Work,” which received the American Educational
Research Association’s Outstanding Book Award for 1998, and, with
co-editor Gary Sykes, “Teaching as the Learning Profession,”
which
earned the National Staff Development Council’s Outstanding Book
Award
for 2000.
Darling-Hammond has served on numerous national boards, including the
White House Advisory Panel’s Resource Group for the National Education
Goals and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The public is invited to a pre-lecture reception to honor
Darling-Hammond and the Hessers at 4 p.m. in the Cotchett Education
Building foyer. For more information and to make a reservation for the
reception, call (805) 756-7380.
###