The School Law Institute @ Teachers College

Gary Orfield

Ph.D., is the Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at UCLA. His research interests are in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. He was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, and now serves as co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. His central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. Recent works include six co-edited books since 2004 and numerous articles and reports. Among his many awards are the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his "contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research" and the 2007 Social Justice in Education Award by the American Educational Research Association for "work which has had a profound impact on demonstrating the critical role of education research in supporting social justice."

Jack F. Jennings, Esq.

Esq., Former President and CEO, founded the Center on Education Policy in January 1995. From 1967 to 1994, he served as subcommittee staff director and then as general counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and Labor. In these positions, he was involved in nearly every major education debate held at the national level, including the reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Vocational Education Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Act., and the Higher Education Act.

Patricia Gándara

Ph.D., is a professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, which is the nation’s leading research center on issues of civil rights and racial inequality. She is also Associate Director of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute (LMRI) and Director of the LMRI Education Policy Center. She has served as Commissioner for Postsecondary Education in California, a bilingual school psychologist, a social scientist with the RAND Corporation, and director of education research for the California State Assembly. Her research focuses on educational equity and access for low income and ethnic minority students, language policy, and the education of Mexican origin youth. Her most recent publication is Understanding the Latino Education Gap, Why Latinos Don't Go to College (Harvard University Press, 2009).

John B. King, Jr.

Ed.D., J.D., is the New York State Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York. King brings extensive experience leading urban public schools that are closing the achievement gap in his role as a Managing Director with Uncommon Schools, a non-profit charter management organization that operates some of the highest performing urban public schools in New York and New Jersey. Prior to joining Uncommon Schools, Dr. King was a Co-Founder and Co-Director for Curriculum & Instruction of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School. Under his leadership, Roxbury Prep’s students attained the highest state exam scores of any urban middle school in Massachusetts, closed the racial achievement gap, and outperformed students from not only the Boston district schools but also the city’s affluent suburbs.

Maree Sneed

J.D., Ph.D., is a senior partner at the Washington, DC law firm Hogan Lovells and director of the firm’s nationally prominent education practice. She serves on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and as a board member and secretary of the National School Boards Foundation. She advises school districts, educational associations, and private companies in the education sector on state and federal legal issues. Recently Maree was counsel of record in two major Supreme Court cases, Schaffer v. Weast and PICS v. Seattle School District No. 1. Previously she worked as a teacher and administrator in the Montgomery County Public Schools.

Rhoda E. Schneider

J.D., General Counsel and Senior Associate Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Institute co-chair). For over 30 years, Rhoda Schneider has been chief legal counsel to the commissioner, state board, and department staff. She has advised six successive commissioners and served twice herself as acting commissioner. Besides providing legal guidance to the commissioner and the agency, she and her staff also publish advisories for school and district leaders, parents and students, and other constituents on the state and federal laws affecting public elementary and secondary schools. The issues of education law and policy that she addresses include standards-based education reform, civil rights, charter schools, school finance and governance, student assessment, special education, school and district accountability, student rights and responsibilities, and educator licensure. Rhoda is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the editor of the MCLE book, School Law in Massachusetts.

Dennis D. Parker

J.D., is the Director of the ACLU National Office's Racial Justice Program. Concentrating on issues of the school-to-prison pipeline (which funnels children of color from the educational system into the criminal justice system), racial profiling, affirmative action, indigent representation and felon enfranchisement and predatory lending, the Racial Justice Project seeks to remove barriers to equal opportunity for communities of color through litigation, public education, community organizing and legislation. Before joining the ACLU, he worked for the N.Y. York State Attorney General as Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau. Mr. Parker also worked for fourteen years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund litigating and supervising the litigation of scores of cases involving elementary and secondary education, affirmative action in higher education and equal educational opportunity. He has published a book and numerous chapters and articles on a range of civil rights issues. He lectures extensively on civil rights issues and is an adjunct professor at New York Law School. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School.

Michael A. Rebell

J.D., is an experienced litigator, administrator, researcher, and scholar in the field of education law. He is the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity and Professor of Law and Educational Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University. The Campaign seeks to promote equity and excellence in education and to overcome the gap in educational access and achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged students throughout the United States. He is also a member of the national Equity and Excellence Commission which is preparing a report that will be presented to the Secretary of Education and the Congress. Previously, Mr. Rebell was the co-founder, executive director and counsel for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. In CFE v. State of New York, the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, declared that all children are entitled under the state Constitution to the "opportunity for a sound basic education" and it ordered the State of New York to reform its education finance system to meet these constitutional requirements.

Perry A. Zirkel

J.D., LL.M., Ph.D., is University Professor of Education and Law at Lehigh University, where he has held the Iacocca Chair in Education and has served as Dean of the College of Education. He has more than 1,350 publications on various aspects of school law, with an emphasis on legal issues in special education. He writes a regular column for Principal magazine and did so previously for both Phi Delta Kappan and Teaching Exceptional Children. Past president of the Education Law Association and co-chair of the Pennsylvania special education appeals panel from 1990 to 2007, he recently received the Research into Practice Award from the American Educational Research Association and the Excellence in Research Award from AERA’s Division A.

Jay P. Heubert

J.D., Ed.D. (Institute co-chair), is a Professor of Law and Education at Teachers College and Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. For 27 years he has taught courses on education law and policy at Columbia and at Harvard, both of which have recognized him for his teaching. A Carnegie Scholar, in June 2001 he received the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Alumni Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education. He has also been chief counsel to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, a civil-rights lawyer with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and a high-school English teacher. He served as study director for a Congressionally-mandated study of high-stakes testing conducted by the National Academy of Sciences and published as High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation.

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