U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. will visit Chicago on Friday, Dec. 2. In the afternoon, King will announce a new set of tools and resources to support justice-involved youth. In the evening, he will deliver remarks at the Teach to Lead Inclusion, Equity and Opportunity Summit.
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will join King at the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice Chicago Day Reporting Center to learn more about the program offered and join a roundtable conversation with youth and local leaders about the supports provided to young people who have left juvenile justice facilities and are returning to their communities.
These resources are focused on helping justice-involved youth make a successful transition back to traditional school and avoid the dangerous cycle of further delinquency and recidivism. The resources promote successful transitions by emphasizing the importance of early planning and working with family, mentors, facility staff and school employees at every stage of the process. The new resources being announced today respond to recommendations proposed by the Federal Reentry Council and the President's My Brother's Keeper Task Force, which is charged with addressing persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color and ensuring all young people can reach their full potential.
Following this event, King will attend the Teach to Lead Summit, hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and ASCD. The summit will be held Friday through Sunday, Dec. 2-4.
King will speak to approximately 200 teachers, students, administrators, and district leaders, about equity, inclusion, and the power of teachers to create opportunities in their classrooms.
The summit will focus on ideas for combating inequity and fighting for social justice on behalf of students. Educators from around the country were invited to submit their own ideas to collaborate, problem solve, and develop action plans to help address the unique challenges they and their students are facing based on their race/ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual identity, gender, or religion.
Teach to Lead focuses on expanding opportunities for teacher leadership in ways that enhance student learning and make it possible for teachers to stay in the classroom while leading in the profession. The summits are designed to reflect and support collaboration between over 140 supporting organizations, local school districts, teachers' associations and other key leaders on the ground to advance teacher leadership. This past year, the initiative hosted several Teacher Leadership Summits in Baltimore, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Long Beach, California, and Washington, D.C., inviting teachers to bring their ideas to advance teacher leadership, ideally without their need to give up teaching responsibilities, at the school, district, state and national levels.
President Obama's 2017 budget proposal includes $10 million in Teach to Lead Grants, which would build on the success of Teach to Lead by providing direct support for teacher-designed, teacher-led projects implementing innovative strategies with the potential for wider impact on improving student outcomes.
Visit teachtolead.org for information on upcoming summits.