Conferences and Symposia

Together with the Earl Warren Legal Institute, the Center hosted an invited symposium entitled School Choice, Law & Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in April 1998. The purpose was to bring together leading scholars in the fields of law and public policy to present originally written papers on eleven topics that are little addressed in the school choice literature. The papers focused on such topics as race and choice, religion and choice, unions and collective bargaining, equity issues involving children with disabilities, the financing of school choice programs, and school choice accountability. A large grant from the Spencer Foundation of Chicago underwrote the symposium, with supplemental funding from the Bank of America, Texas and the Chancellor’s Office at the University of North Texas. In addition to the paper writers, ten commentators were invited to join the deliberations. Professor Kemerer from the Center and Professor Stephen Sugarman, Agness Roddy Robb Professor of Law at Berkeley, have assembled the papers into an edited volume that was published in 1999.  See Research Reports and Publications.

In December, 1997 the Center joined the Texas Education Agency and the Charter School Resource Center in Austin to host a one-day charter school conference in Dallas. Entitled Public Charter Schools: Partnerships for the Next Millennium, participants included representatives from a broad spectrum of the school community, including school district officials, school board members, regional service center personnel, college faculty and administrators, charter school applicants, and elected officials. Eleven distinct conference sessions were presented to inform participants about three critical issues: (1) new state legislation requiring each school district to adopt a campus charter and campus program charter policy by January 1, 1998; (2) how campus charters work and how they can provide new educational partnerships; and (3) organizational issues. Ted Kolderie, a national charter school commentator, provided the background for the Texas initiatives in his keynote address.

In December 2005, the Center, in conjunction with the Centro de Estudios de Posgrado de la Secretaría de Educación de Jalisco and Secretaría de Desarrollo Humano del Estado de Jalisco, co-sponsored the Second Texas-Jalisco Conference in Education, held at the University of North Texas. Conference sessions focused on issues of cultural and environmental diversity in Mexico and the U. S. Researchers from SEJ and UNT presented their findings from a longitudinal study of the educational challenges faced by Mexican children who migrate between U. S. and Mexican schools.

The Center held a conference on undocumented Hispanic immigration at the University of North Texas in May, 2008. Nationally recognized experts on immigration law and education, anthropology, political science, and economics presented their scholarship in the day-long event. No tengo una tarjeta verde, Undocumented Hispanic Immigrants in the United States: Problems, Benefits, and Prospects themes included Undocumented Immigration: Children and Education, Undocumented Immigration and the Law, The Economic Impact of Undocumented Immigration, Undocumented Immigration in the 21st Century: Social and Cultural Issues. Selected papers will be published by UNT Press in the fall of 2008.