| 2008 Southern Regional Forum |
As the chilly February breezes urged strollers on the beach to walk faster, the warm Southern welcome inside the Westin Resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C., encouraged the nearly 500 attendees at the Southern Regional Forum to celebrate the year’s successes and work to overcome the challenges of a changing education landscape.
Michael Shackleford, Southern Regional Assembly Council chair, kicked off the opening session luncheon Feb. 6 with his traditional three claps and “hoo-ha,” noticeably pumping up the energy level as the audience joined him.
Guest speaker Belle Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, drew on her experiences as a faculty member, college president and Virginia’s secretary of education, as well as a mother, to dare educators to step “out of the box” to help students.
Reminding the audience that middle- and upper-middle-class families also have students who do not perform well in school, Wheelan said that all students need attention and encouragement. If we are to significantly reduce the estimated 30 percent school drop-out rate, listeners should disregard all stereotypes. “Students are central to success. That’s why institutions are there,” she said.
Wallace Keese, director of student support services at Fort Valley State University; Jenny Krugman, vice president, College Board Southern Regional Office; and Michael Shackleford, associate vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Virginia State University and Southern Regional Assembly chair
Elizabeth Brookshire, counselor at
Biloxi (Miss.) High School and member of the Regional Council and Program Planning Committee
The recognition luncheon Feb. 7 celebrated the region’s educators. Following the awards, Arlene Ackerman, Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University, promised to speak the truth as she knew it: “All is not well for many of the children we serve.”
Ackerman asked what it will take for policymakers and politicians to stop experimenting and do what we know must be done. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, U.S. students rank 23rd out of 29 in an international comparison of high school graduation rates. If things don’t change, we are committing educational genocide, she stated. “The impact will relegate our children to a permanent underclass.”
She urged communities to come together to allocate the resources to meet students’ needs. “I believe in public schools; they produce great minds,” Ackerman concluded.
Forum attendees at the
inspiration breakfast
At the inspiration breakfast Feb. 8, College Board President Gaston Caperton said history is a race between education and catastrophe. Caperton listed the challenges the country is facing and declared, “If this is an education race, which I believe it is…. We have to have a long-range commitment. …Education is going to take a 25-year plan.” Caperton said he is not optimistic, but he is hopeful. With courage, compassion and determination, he said, we can give the next generation of Americans the best education in the world.
Martin Lancaster, president of the North Carolina Community College System, spoke next. He thanked Caperton for the work he has done to bring community colleges to the forefront of American education. Lancaster affirmed that community colleges are about second chances and backed up his statement with one success story after another, which brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience.
In all, approximately 60 sessions focused on many topics, including the critical role of community colleges, the new CollegeKeys Compact™, an update on the AP Course Audit, the future of admissions and financial aid, the tight budget outlook for education in the 10 Southern state legislatures, the future of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the school counselor’s role in student achievement.
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Georgia Teacher Wins Bob Costas Grant |
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Nancy Sladky of the John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in Augusta, Ga. |
Nancy Sladky, an inner-city public school teacher from Augusta, Ga., is the Southern Region’s 2008 recipient of one of six College Board Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing.
The grants recognize extraordinary teachers who use innovative methods to inspire their students to write.
Sladky teaches literature and writing at John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, which is dedicated to teaching the performing arts. Sladky is committed to making writing an integral part of the curriculum. She sponsors an active poetry and fiction writing club, publishes a literary journal, holds events to showcase student writing and has collaborated with the library to establish a creative writing blog for students. With this grant, she plans to help her students publish their writing in a large historical format called broadsides. These poster-sized papers, used in the 16th century to publish words and art, were also popular with Harlem Renaissance and Beat writers. Sladky will help her students create original broadsides to be displayed at school and in the surrounding neighborhood. These publications will help students connect to the downtown community and share their ideas and art with a larger audience.
The College Board created the grants in 2006 to support teachers and to thank Bob Costas, the Emmy Award-winning broadcaster and author, for his generous public service work on behalf of the National Commission on Writing. Each winner receives an award of $3,000. Sladky was honored at the Southern Regional Forum on Feb. 7 at the Westin Resort in Hilton Head Island, S.C. Visit www.collegeboard.com/costasgrants for more information about the grants.
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The 2008 "AP® Report to the Nation" included participation and performance data for each state within the context of its population and racial/ethnic demographics.
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