Askwith Stories, Videos, & EdCasts

The Children's Defense Fund has always maintained that children need comprehensive, integrated supports and services from birth through adulthood. How can America provide this given the existing fragmented education and health and human services…

On March 26, Temple Grandin, world famous animal scientist and autism activist, presented "All Kinds of Minds Help the World" at the Askwith Forum.  Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, discussed her firsthand…

World famous animal scientist and autism activist Temple Grandin discusses how autism and visual thinking has revolutionized farm-animal welfare, as well as that of countless others with autism.   

The debate about Common Core Standards has been swirling since the initiative was introduced. As Common Core is implemented in more and more school districts, advocates and opponents continue to debate both its drawbacks and merits. In this edition…

“Is Public Education Dead?” The speakers at Thursday’s Askwith Forum did not answer a definitive “yes.” Instead, they agreed that it is in dire need of a fix that the creation of charter schools didn’t necessarily solve.“Is public…

Professor Deborah Jewell-Sherman, who shared tea with Farah Anwar Pandith on the Askwith Forum stage last night, couldn'’t help but say what everyone was likely thinking about the woman who has worked for two Bush administrations, the Obama…

Is public education irreparably broken, and are charter schools and vouchers the solution? This forum brought together scholars and practitioners to explore what can be learned about genuine education reform from the experience of successful school…

For many education leaders today one of the toughest changes to implement to date is the Common Core Standards Initiative.At the recent Askwith Forum “Common Core: Perils, Pitfalls, and Opportunities,” Professor Paul Reville asked Massachusetts…

In the Harvard Education Press title Restoring Opportunity, coauthors Professor Richard Murnane and University of California - Irvine Professor Greg Duncan examine inequality in American education and provide detailed portraits of proven initiatives…

Farah Anwar Pandith -- spring 2014 fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and former special representative to Muslim communities for the U.S. Department of State -- spoke from a global perspective about women in leadership and the…

At the Askwith Forum, “The Hidden Science of Hip Hop: S.T.E.M. with No Root Bears No Fruit,” Christopher Emdin, associate professor at Teacher’s College, urged educators to look deeper into hip-hop culture as a means to teach and reach students…

Educational leaders John King Jr. and Mitchell Chester discuss being an effective leader, implementing Common Core, and how to drive educational change.

On Saturday, March 1, Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum comes to the Harvard Graduate School of Education as keynote speaker for the 2014 Alumni of Color Conference, "From Dreams to Movements: Education, Inequality, and Justice." In this…

Fifty years after Martin Luther King's expression of his "dream" for America and her people, Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum led a conversation focused on re-examining and, if necessary, redefining the dreams we have for ourselves, our…

As part of the 2014 Alumni of Color Conference, Christopher Emdin -- associate professor of science education at Teacher's College -- explores the ways that hip-hop culture expresses an interest in, admiration for, and in some cases, deep knowledge…

The Harvard Graduate School of Education is pleased to announce its spring 2014 Askwith Forums, a series of public lectures dedicated to discussing challenges facing education, sharing new knowledge, and generating spirited conversation. Highlights…

As the incomes of affluent and poor families have diverged over the past three decades, so too has the educational performance of their children. At the Askwith Forum, panelists discussed interventions that have proven effective and detail a set of…

School districts and policymakers are not sole reformers working alone to transform education today. In the past two decades since A Nation at Risk, local and national organizations have become key players in school reform. “Schools have become…

On November 13, the Askwith Forum highlighted the work and impact of local and national organizations devoted to school reform that are playing a significant and growing role in the transformation of U.S. schools.

Standardization has hardly been tradition within the American education system. It was not long ago — within the last 20 years to be exact — that not a single state in the South required algebra 1 for graduation, local governments in Pennsylvania…