Events

Sulzberger Distinguished Lecture - Ronald Ferguson

Educational Excellence with Equity: A Social Movement for the 21st Century

In this lecture, Ronald F. Ferguson will argue that the nation is in the early phases of a national social movement to improve educational outcomes for students from all racial, ethnic, and social class backgrounds. He will describe the major dimensions of that movement, emphasizing the urgency of improvements in teaching, parenting, peer culture, community (including employer) engagement and leadership. The presentation will draw from Ferguson’s recent research and writing, including his book from Harvard Education Press, Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap.

Ferguson, senior lecturer in education and public policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School, is an MIT-trained economist whose research, teaching, writing and consulting over three decades have focused on economic, social and educational challenges in urban America.

He is the creator of the Tripod Project for School Improvement, the faculty co-chair and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University and faculty co-director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also a senior research associate at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. Ferguson earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and PhD from MIT, both in economics.

His recent work has attracted widespread attention. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project on Measuring Effective Teaching reported in 2010 that student perceptions of teaching, using Dr. Ferguson’s Tripod Project survey tools, help to predict learning gains in public school classrooms. His report, How High Schools Become Exemplary (2010), was featured in September 2010 on the front page of the New York Times. Another report, Pathways to Prosperity (2011), has added fuel to the national debate on how to help all youth, not just the college-bound, transition successfully from school to work. In 2008 Harvard Education Press published a collected-papers volume of his research and writing on the achievement gap, Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap.

Please join us for a reception immediately following the talk.

Parking for this event is available for a fee in the Bryan Center parking deck or the Science Drive visitor's lot. Directions and parking information.