Seminar Examines Latest Research in African American EducationPRINCETON, N.J.
Education and public affairs professionals from throughout the Mid-Atlantic region gathered at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) earlier this month to examine the latest research on the state of African American education.
Looking at education from pre-school through post-graduate levels, participants investigated the public-policy implications of issues such as access, progress, achievement and subsequent success in the workplace for African American students.
Sponsored by ETS and hosted by Dr. Michael T. Nettles, executive director of ETS' Center for Policy Research and Evaluation, the seminar provided participants the opportunity to assess the challenges facing African Americans in all levels of education, including access to high-quality pre-kindergarten, elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, the progress being made in eliminating achievement gaps, and the challenges facing colleges and universities in their effort to increase enrollment retention and degree completion among African American students.
"While the achievement gap is rightfully a main concern of the education community, much progress has also been made in African American education," Nettles says. "It is important, in the midst of efforts to  make progress, to occasionally stop, take stock and regenerate ideas to make further progress. This seminar was as much about acknowledging accomplishment as it was about imagining the strategy toward continuing progress."
The seminar featured the following discussions and speakers:
• "Closing the Gap at the Starting Gate: Why the New Jersey Supreme Court Ordered Preschool" — Dr. Ellen Frede, assistant to the commissioner, Office of Early Childhood Programs, N.J. State Department of Education.
• "African American Student Access, Attendance and Attainment" — Dr. M. Christopher Brown II, executive director and chief research scientist, Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute.
• "Affirmative Student Development" — Dr. Edmund Gordon, John M. Musser professor of psychology, emeritus, Yale University; Richard March Hoe, emeritus, professor of psychology and education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
• "The Black-White Achievement Gap: Probing Beneath the Surface" — Dr. Henry Braun, distinguished presidential appointee, ETS.
• "Racial Ethnic Diversity in Selective Colleges and Universities" — Dr. Eugene Y. Lowe Jr., associate provost, Northwestern University.
• "Access and Achievement in Doctoral Education" — Dr. Catherine M. Millett, research scientist, ETS. 
For more information, access the ETS Web site at <www.ets.org>.

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