What: Discussion about how the federal No Child Left Behind Act can reduce student attendance, featuring Daniel Losen, senior education law and policy associate at The Civil Rights Project at UCLA
When: 10 to 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, April 23
Where: Open Society Institute-Baltimore
201 North Charles Street, Suite 1300
Seating is limited. Please call Molly Farneth at 410-234-1092 to reserve a seat.
BALTIMORE—The Open Society Institute-Baltimore will host the fourth forum in its series about truancy–this one featuring Daniel Losen who will discuss how the federal No Child Left Behind Act can push students out of school and lead to higher truancy and drop-out rates.
Losen is the senior education law and policy associate at the The Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining the Civil Rights Project, Losen practiced education law for economically-disadvantaged students in Massachusetts and, for ten years, taught in public schools. His current advocacy and research highlights the impact of federal, state, and local education laws and school policies on students, particularly those of color. Losen focuses on school policies that can push children out of school, leading to dropping out of high school and winding up in prison.
Losen will discuss how school accountability policies that focus tightly on test scores can lead to higher drop-out rates, particularly if those policies do not also hold schools accountable for student attendance and engagement. “There are many reasons why students miss school. Unfortunately, some government policies, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, are part of the problem too,” said Diana Morris, director of OSI-Baltimore. "What we need are government policies that also focus on keeping children in school and meeting their educational and social needs so that they can succeed. This forum will give policy makers, educators, program providers, advocates, and funders the opportunity to discuss how Baltimore’s public schools can increase student engagement and attendance.”
The truancy forum series builds on OSI-Baltimore’s ongoing effort to increase the number of children who are in school every day. Recognizing that the problem is not limited to “playing hooky,” OSI focuses on addressing the root causes of poor attendance, such as limited transportation, fear of violence, poor health, the excessive use of suspension and expulsion, unwelcoming schools, and limited athletic, artistic, and other extracurricular activities to engage youth. Past OSI forum series and grants have promoted school-wide approaches to teaching good behavior, supportive services to address students’ non-academic needs, and the development of in-school consequences for students who misbehave.
The last forum will be:
10 to 11:30 a.m., May 22—Robert Balfanz, a researcher at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, will present new research by the Baltimore Educational Research Consortium on truancy and dropping out of school in Baltimore. His recent work suggests that frequent school absence by sixth grade is a highly accurate predictor of dropping out of school.
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Founded by philanthropist George Soros, OSI-Baltimore is a private operating foundation that supports a grantmaking, educational and capacity-building program to expand justice and opportunity for Baltimore residents. With support from a range of investors, its current work focuses on helping Baltimore's youth succeed, reducing the social and economic costs of incarceration, tackling drug addiction, and building a corps of Community Fellows to bring innovative ideas to Baltimore's underserved communities.