Kansas City knows both the pain of a failing education system and promise of renewal as its public schools system anticipates full state accreditation for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Amid debate about the effectiveness and direction of our schools nationwide, a lineup of top policy makers and analysts – including Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell – examines the state of education today and issues ranging from test-based teacher evaluation to vouchers and charter schools. Discussions are moderated by noted education researcher Jay P. Greene, professor and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and Michael McShane, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute. A light breakfast and box lunches are served.

The program schedule:

9:30 a.m.
Opening and welcome
 
9:45 - 11 a.m.
Panel 1: The Big Picture: What Does Failure Mean? Are Experts Really Experts?

Papers presented:

• “The Limits of Expertise” by Frederick M. Hess, resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of the popular Education Week blog Rick Hess Straight Up, and American Enterprise Institute research assistant Paige Willey.
• “The ‘Failure’ of Technologies to Transform Traditional Teaching in the Past Century” by Larry Cuban, emeritus professor of education at Stanford University.
• “Teacher education: Failed Reform and a Missed Opportunity” by University of Virginia cognitive psychology professor Daniel Willingham.

Discussants: Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell and Charles King, executive director of the Kansas City Teacher Residency program.
 
11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Panel 2: Go Big or Go Home: The Federal Government’s Forays in Failure

Papers presented:

• “No Child Left Behind” by Martin West, associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and past senior education policy adviser to the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
• “School Improvement Grants: Failures in Design and Implementation” by Ashley Jochim, research analyst at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education.
• “Test-Based Teacher Evaluation” by Matthew Di Carlo, senior research fellow at the Albert Shanker Institute, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit established by the American Federation of Teachers.

Discussant: Melissa Patterson-Hazley, managing partner of Hazley & Associates and University of Missouri-Kansas City education instructor.
 
12:15 - 12:45 p.m.
Lunch
 
12:45 - 2 p.m.
Panel 3: The Challengers: Choice, Philanthropy, and Their Shortcomings

Papers presented:

• “The Failure of Private School Vouchers and Tax Credit Scholarships” by Anna Egalite, assistant professor of education at North Carolina State University.
• “No Excuses Charter Schools: The Good, the Bad, and the Overprescribed” by Matthew Ladner, senior research fellow at the Charles Koch Institute in Arlington, Virginia, and co-author of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform.”
• “Education Philanthropy” by Megan Tompkins-Stange, assistant professor of public property at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Discussant: Awais Sufi, president and CEO of the new nonprofit SchoolSmartKC.