Preserving Public Education
Our October program is a hybrid event. Attend in-person at the Goodman South Public Library, or register for a Zoom link to attend virtually.
Find a Discussion Unit meeting that's convenient for you and continue the conversation after the Forum!
Join the League of Women Voters of Dane County for Preserving Public Education to learn from our education panel experts, Kevin Henry and Julie Mead, with moderator Julie Underwood, about how education funding works and the effect of public education on our community. We will cover
the result of the latest education budget,
the motivation behind the voucher system, and
the racial and economic impacts on our children of “school choice.”
The trend toward increasing state aid for private schools and decreasing aid for public schools has racial, economic, and educational impacts on our children.
The League of Women Voters supports the implementation of non-discriminatory policies, dispersal of equitable state aid, and retaining substantial program and personnel responsibilities in the local district to support educational equity.
Panelists:
Kevin Lawrence Henry, Jr., Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, UW–Madison
Dr. Henry’s interdisciplinary program of research and teaching revolves around two central, interrelated questions: 1. how power and dominance shape and structure educational policies, practices, and reforms; and 2. how Black educational actors understand, resist, reconstitute, and transform educational fields to be equitable, just, and humanizing.
Specifically, Dr. Henry’s research investigates: the racialized lived realities of charter schools and school choice policy and practice; the persistence of anti-Blackness in education; neoliberalism and educational markets; and culturally relevant and restorative justice approaches in education.
Julie Mead, Professor Emerita, School of Education, UW–Madison; LWVDC member who serves on the LWVWI Legislative Committee
Julie Mead‘s research examines topics related to education law. Recent scholarship has proposed policy language to ensure charter schools promote equal educational opportunity, traced the evolution of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, examined voucher programs in relation to the education clauses of state constitutions, and analyzed voucher statutes for the presence or absence of nondiscrimination requirements
Moderator:
Julie Underwood, Dean Emerita, School of Education, LWVDC Member who serves on the LWVWI Legislative Committee
Julie Underwood, a nationally recognized authority on school law, served as dean of the UW–Madison School of Education (2005-2015). Underwood holds a law degree from Indiana University and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from the University of Florida.
In 1998, she became associate executive director and general counsel for the National School Boards Association. She led a legal advocacy program on behalf of the nation's public school boards, including producing friend-of-the-court briefs and legal strategies before the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts.
Her research and scholarship focus on school finance and education law and policy.