Charter Schools and Vouchers are among Topics of Gerald Bracey Lecture

NEW PALTZ — Policy analyst, researcher and writer Gerald Bracey will speak at the State University of New York at New Paltz on Friday, March 12. His topic will be “Charter Schools, Vouchers & Private Management of Public Schools – New Wine in Old Skins or Trojan Horses?”

Bracey has written numerous articles about testing and authentic assessment. For the last 13 years, he has also written monthly columns on educational and psychological research for Phi Delta Kappan. In 1994 and 1995, he authored monthly newsletters for the American Association of School Administrators.

A policy-oriented article, “Why Can’t They Be Like We Were?”, written in 1991 and now regarded as the “First Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education,” drew national media attention. Subsequent reports attracted similar interest. In 1997, Phi Delta Kappa International bound all seven reports into a book, “The Truth About America’s Schools: The Bracey Reports, 1991-1997.”

Final Exam: The Perpetual Scrutiny of American Education was published in 1995,while Bracey was the first Distinguished Fellow for the Agency for Instructional Technology, and provided a century-long history of educational reform as well as histories of educational assessment, educational standards, and educational outcomes.

In early 1997, Bracey summarized most of his findings in Setting the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education, a book that debunks 20 common myths about American schools. The book was published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

In August 1998, a monograph by Bracey, titled “Put to the Test: An Educator’s and Consumer’s Guide to Standardized Tests,” was published by Phi Delta Kappa.

The Bracey lecture, which will take place at 7:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 102, is sponsored by the Education Council and the School of Education at SUNY New Paltz and is supported by The College at New Paltz Foundation.