Grawemeyer Award in Education winners to discuss reform at international gathering of educational researchers

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Four recipients of the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education will participate in an April 11 panel discussion at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The panelists will discuss their award-winning ideas and their experiences working with policymakers and practitioners to prompt educational change. The AERA Presidential Session, “The Power of Public Scholarship to Transform Policy and Practice,” will feature Grawemeyer Award recipients Linda Darling-Hammond, Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves and Diane Ravitch. Valerie Strauss, education reporter for The Washington Post will moderate the discussion. Strauss and University of Louisville College of Education and Human Development Dean Ann Larson are co-chairs of the session. Darling-Hammond received the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for her book, “The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future,” in which she presents  her theory that the United States no longer leads the world in education because it spends far less on low-income and minority students than it does on affluent students. Her research showed that although nations in Europe and Asia fund schools centrally and equally, the wealthiest American school districts spend nearly 10 times more than the poorest. Ravitch’s book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education,” earned her the 2014 Grawemeyer Award.  The work chronicles her decades-long journey from reform advocate to critic and encourages a return to school curriculums that value art, literature, creativity and problem solving. Hargreaves and Fullan received the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Education for ideas outlined in their book, “Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School.” They found that placing teachers in a team environment that encourages individual contributions, group interactions and continuous learning is a more effective approach than using performance-based education models to reward or punish individual teachers. University of Louisville graduate and philanthropist Charles Grawemeyer created the awards program in 1984 to pay tribute to the power of creative thought and emphasize the impact a single idea can have on the world. The Grawemeyer Award in Education was established in 1988, with the first winner, Bertrand Schwartz, named the following year. The 2016 recipients are Karl Alexander, the late Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson for their decades-long research study, which is chronicled in their book, “The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood.” UofL presents the annual prizes for outstanding works in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology and education and gives a religion prize jointly with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.   Photo courtesy of Flickr