MU to host No Child Left Behind forum

A public forum on Saturday seeks to provide Columbia citizens the opportunity to discuss how the federal No Child Left Behind Act has been working in Missouri.

The No Child Left Behind Forum is part of a series, sponsored by the National Academy of Education, that has been touring the country since 2004. The education legislation, which Congress passed four years ago, is up for reauthorization next year.

The presentation will feature George Hillocks, a professor emeritus of education and English at the University of Chicago, and Larry Hedges, a professor of education at Northwestern University. Guest panelists are Carolyn Herrington, dean of the College of Education at MU, and Mary Davidson Cohen, a regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education. Herrington will also moderate an open-mic session and provide closing remarks.

Hillocks and Hedges are members of the National Academy of Education. Cohen, an MU alumna, and Herrington will seek to provide a local perspective for the discussion.

Herrington said the event is an opportunity for Missourians to speak about changes that should be made to the act. She anticipated that people with strong opinions would turn up for the forum.

“We think it’s going to be a very lively and very rich discussion,” she said. “We want educators to come, but we also want to encourage parents and just ordinary citizens. No Child Left Behind affects us all.”

The forum will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at MU’s Reynolds Alumni Center. It is sponsored by the National Academy of Education, the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education and the National Society for the Study of Education. The MU College of Education and the MU department of educational leadership and policy analysis are hosting the forum.