SAN FRANCISCO, March 25, 2003 --- San Francisco State University's Cesar E. Chavez Institute and College of Education will team up with The Civil Rights Project of Harvard University to feature some of the country's top experts in Latino educational research during a forum on educational equality in the 21st century from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, March 28 in the Seven Hills Conference Center on the SFSU campus.

The forum will bring together more than 350 participants including teachers, school officials and community advocates to look at ways race and ethnicity affect school experiences for ethnic minority children. The sessions, which will examine how educational practices can address racial and economic inequalities, will cover topics ranging from immigration to Latino educational achievement in the United States.

The forum features Eugene Garcia, dean of the Arizona State University School of Education; Pedro Noguera, professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Gary Orfield, founding co-director of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard as well as school superintendents Dennis Chaconas of Oakland Unified and Arlene Ackerman of San Francisco Unified.

Organizers say the overwhelming interest in the forum --- which comes as SFSU's Cesar Chavez Institute celebrates its 10th anniversary -- is a result of growing concern that schools systems do not seem to work equally for children of color.

Schools often reflect society's lack of commitment to racial and social justice, said Rafael Diaz, director of SFSU's Cesar E. Chavez Institute. "Students at the top of the economic ladder are rewarded with access to better teachers and classes while those at the bottom are punished and relegated to remedial classes with badly trained and unmotivated teachers," he said.

A key aspect of the forum will be a look at successful programs that have helped Latino, African American and Asian American children succeed in school. Organizers hope that the teachers, scholars and community representatives will learn from one another about programs that work.

"Too often school reform focuses on what doesn't work," said Gilbert Conchas, a faculty fellow at the Chavez Institute and member of the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "We want to look at the issue differently. What efforts really work in the classroom and why can't we do those things elsewhere to help other children."

The Institute's forum will be the first in what will be an annual event in partnership with Harvard University on issues of social justice.

Below is a list of sessions for the March 28 forum. All sessions take place in the Seven Hills Conference Center on the SFSU campus.

9:30 a.m. -- Keynote speech "Latino Education in the U.S.: Roots and Wings" by Eugene Garcia, dean of the Arizona State University School of Education.

11 a.m. -- Dismantling Racial Inequality in Schools
Speaker: Gary Orfield, co-founder of the Civil Rights Project of Harvard and professor of education.
Panelists: Ming-Yeh Lee of the SFSU College of Education and Hoover Liddell of the San Francisco Unified School District.

1:30 p.m. -- Capturing Latino Students in the Academic Pipeline
Speaker: Patricia Gandara of the UC Davis College of Education.
Panelists: Ingrid Seyer Ochi of the UC Berkeley School of Education and Dennis Chaconas, superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District.

3:30 p.m. -- Accountability for Whom? What it Really Takes to Leave No Child Behind.
Speaker: Pedro Noguera of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Panelists: Jake Perea, dean of the SFSU College of Education, and Arlene Ackerman, superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District.

5 p.m. -- Towards Educational Equality in the 21st Century.
Speaker: Gilberto Conchas, a faculty fellow at the Cesar E. Chavez Institute and faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Note to editors: For information about the forum, call Ted DeAdwyler of the SFSU Office of Public Affairs at (415) 338-7110.