Event Archives

REL-NEI Policy Challenges Conference: High-Risk Student Populations

Bringing together researchers and stakeholders to discuss high-risk student populations was the focus of REL Northeast and Islands’ second Policy Challenges Conference, held in Providence, RI, March 5–6th, 2008. Over 100 educators, researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders representing all states and jurisdictions in the REL Northeast and Islands Region attended the conference.

Dr. Ron Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, offered a keynote speech about the role of research in understanding and addressing the specific needs of at risk students in the United States. “We’ve got to find ways to deliver really high-quality instruction to kids at the bottom of the achievement distribution and put just as much thought and energy and enthusiasm into that as we do for the kids…at the top end of the distribution,” Ferguson said. “We need some research on how you actually make that happen in real schools.”

The event opened with a panel discussion featuring Paula Dominguez, Senior Education Policy Advisor to the Rhode Island Legislature; Elizabeth Burke Bryant, Executive Director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT; and Caroline Parker, Research Scientist at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), which administers REL-NEI. Dominguez and Burke Bryant described the role that research played in informing a key piece of legislation on dropout prevention in Rhode Island, while Parker discussed how she has been working with assessment directors in several states to ensure high-quality assessments are available for all students.

The conference showcased REL-NEI research projects that examine issues relevant to high-risk student populations and offered participants the opportunity to speak with project staff about the research during round-table discussions. These sessions helped stakeholders exchange ideas about the potential impact of the findings and discuss how this research may affect their decisions regarding state education policies.

Presentations allowed participants to learn about current education research and to share challenges that they face in their own states and districts. State teams, comprising educators, policymakers, and state education agency (SEA) staff, had multiple opportunities during the two-day conference to work together to identify policy challenges and discuss possible new initiatives in their jurisdictions.

Panels focused on issues such as reducing urban minority-student dropout rates and addressing the disproportionate representation of high-risk students in special-education classes. REL-NEI Director Jill Weber hailed the conference as an effective way to convene a group of researchers and decision-makers to examine how research can be applied in different contexts.

“We value these conversations, as they help us get closer to our goal of making education an evidence-based field,” Weber said. “The Policy Challenges Conference was an opportunity for us to learn from practitioners and for them to learn from us. It allowed REL staff to continue to define the most useful pieces of work we can do in this area and to focus on ways to bring research to regional policymakers.”

View Dr. Ferguson’s keynote address. (62 min.)

Learn about REL-NEI research work related to high-risk student populations.

Learn about the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University.