California Education Reform
The New 3R's: Repairing, Redesigning, and Rebuilding Our Public Schools
Due to the roundtable nature of this program we are unable to provide individual guest tracks.
Maria Brenes
Maria Brenes, youth organizing director Inner City Struggle in East Los
Angeles, began campaigning for Latino rights during high school in response
to anti-immigration backlash in California in the mid 1990s. A student
activist while at Berkeley, she then worked in Oakland for a multi-racial
social justice project before attending the Harvard Graduate School of
Education—where she served as the first Chicana student government
president. She currently advocates for culturally relevant classes at three
high schools in East L.A.
xbrenes@yahoo.com
Christopher Cabaldon
Christopher Cabaldon, once vice-chancellor of the California Community
Colleges, the largest higher education system in the U.S., is the mayor
of West Sacramento—where he’s spearheading community-based
reform in the local schools. He serves on an array of state and egional
commissions, has been a chief consultant to the California Assembly’s
committee on higher education and is founder of the Asian Pacific Youth
Leadership Project. As a child, he was a founding student at California’s
first magnet school , and he has a bachelor’s degree in environmental
economics from UC-Berkeley and a masters in public policy from CSU-Sacramento,
where he is an adjunct faculty member.
christopher@edvoice.org
http://www.edvoice.org
Steve Jubb
Steve Jubb is the executive director of theBay Area Coalition for Equitable
Schools (BayCES), which with the financial aid of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation aims to create networks of small, equitable schools to
increase achievement of historically underserved students. He also has
been the California co-director of the Coalition of essential Schools
and once was the teacher of the year at De Anza High School in Richmond,
California, where he taught English and creative writing and served as
assistant football coach. At Stanford he was an All-West offensive tackle
blocker for the 1971 Rose Bowl team. He is fluent in Spanish, a musician,
a published songwriter and a journalist.
steve@bayces.org
Samantha Knox
Samantha Knox is a youth organizer at the Long Beach office of Californians
for Justice, a statewide grassroots organization working to empower communities
that have been pushed to the margins of the political process. It brings
together people of color, young people, and poor people by leading large-scale
community education efforts to train a new generation of civil rights leaders
while mobilizing public support for major public policy change in California.
www.caljustice.org
Jeannie Oakes
Jeannie Oakes is director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education & Access
(IDEA) and UC's All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD).
Dr. Oakes' research examines inequalities in U.S. schools, and follows
the progress of equity-minded reform. She is the author of 17 scholarly
books and monographs and more than 100 published research reports, chapters
and articles.
oakes@ucla.edu
Solomon Rivera
Solomon Rivera, director of Californians for Justice, has worked on immigrany
rights, education, public health and racial justice for 20 years. The Los
Angeles native was director of South central Youth Empowerment Through
Action, which became a national model for youth organizing, before becoming
associate director of the 4,00-member Community Coalition. He then honed
skills in electoral politics and now leads a statewide grassroots organization
aiming to produce social change. The 10-year-old Californians for Justice
works to bring together people of color, the young and the poor t o train
a new generation of grassroots civil rights leaders.
Solomon@caljustice.org
Eddie Tackett
Eddie Tackett is a Latino youth organizer for Californians for Justice.
The 10-year-old Californians for Justice works to bring together people
of color, the young and the poor t o train a new generation of grassroots
civil rights leaders.
http://www.caljustice.org