Over 100 scholars, attorneys and community organizers gathered in Berkeley, California on April 27 and 28 for a conference entitled "Rethinking Rodriguez: Education as a Fundamental Right." The conference was sponsored by the newly-established Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute for Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.  The Institute is working with The Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College and a number of other groups around the country to develop legal theories and advocacy techniques aimed at promoting educational equity.

Michael A. Rebell, The Equity Campaign's Executive Director, presented a paper entitled "Judicial Activism Revisited: A Comparative Institutional Analysis of the State Courts' Role in Ensuring Equal Educational Opportunity." Rebell argued that the courts' principled approach to public policy is necessary and proper, if America's stated commitment to equal educational opportunity is to be achieved. But courts alone cannot implement the necessary reforms and remedies, and new approaches for a productive "colloquy" between the judicial, legislative and executive branches must be discussed and implemented if we are to achieve real success in eliminating the achievement gaps.

Other papers presented at the conference explored federal support for adequacy and equity in education finance, re-thinking the intradistrict distribution of school resources,  building the instructional capacity of local schools, and education, equality and national citizenship. The major themes raised at this conference regarding the relationship between the law and social science in promoting school reform and the relationship between state and federal efforts to promote educational equity will be further explored at the conference entitled: Schools for Our Future: "Ensuring Quality Education for All Children," sponsored by the Equity Campaign's ACCESS project and a number of other organizations, which will be held in Washington D.C. on June 5 and 6, 2006.

Click here for a copy of all the commissioned papers:

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/ewi/research/index.html

Published Monday, May. 15, 2006