Leaders of SREB states to review progress on Challenge to Lead Goals for Education

The Legislative Work Conference runs Saturday, June 25, through Monday, June 27. The Board Meeting, which will include a business session on Tuesday, starts with a dinner Sunday, June 26, and ends Tuesday, June 28. The sessions - all of which are open - will be held at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans.

• The activity will begin on the afternoon of Saturday, June 25, when the Legislative Work Conference is called to order by the chair of the SREB Legislative Advisory Council (Representative Stephanie Ulbrich of Delaware) and the vice chair (Senator Roman Prezioso Jr. of West Virginia).
   
• The Legislative Work Conference will include a discussion on Saturday of SREB's Challenge to Lead Goals for Education by the person who headed the SREB Commission on Education Goals (Nancy K. Kopp, State Treasurer of Maryland and a former state delegate) and a member of the Goals Commission (Representative Ronald P. Townsend of South Carolina, who is Treasurer of SREB and chair of the S.C. House Education Committee). Lynn Cornett, senior vice president of SREB, will present one of the reports on SREB Goals - Building a Foundation for Success by Getting Every Child Ready for School.
   
• On Sunday, the lawmakers will hear about school and college funding from two Arkansas legislators (Senator James B. Argue Jr., President Pro Tempore of the Arkansas Senate, and Representative Jodie Mahony ) and the President Pro Tempore of the Virginia Senate (Senator John H. Chichester). Joan Lord, director of educational policies at SREB, will lead presentation of another report on SREB's Goals - Focusing on Student Performance through Accountability - with responses and comments from education leaders from several SREB states.
   
• At the Monday morning joint session of the Legislative Work Conference and the SREB Board Meeting, Governor Blanco will review the actions in 2005 to improve education. SREB's Goals report - Investing Wisely in Adult Learning is Key to State Prosperity - will be featured by several Louisiana education leaders who have worked with the Louisiana Adult Learning Campaign - Cecil J. Picard, State Superintendent of Education; Joe Savoie, Commissioner of Higher Education; and Lisa Smith-Vosper, Associate Commissioner for Workforce, Education, and Training; also in that session will be Bruce Chaloux, director of SREB'S Electronic Campus. In the final session before lunch, Joe Marks, SREB's director of education data services and the author of the just-published 2005 SREB Fact Book on Higher Education, will discuss the book's “Promising and Alarming Messages.”
   
• There will also be sessions on high school graduation, readiness for college and leadership (all part of the Challenge to Lead Goals for Education) and on Southern leadership in state virtual high schools.
   
• Finally, there will be remarks on the Challenge to Lead by SREB staff, including incoming SREB President Dave Spence, who is finishing up as executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer of the California State University System. There will be closing comments by Governor Blanco and by current SREB President Mark Musick, who is leaving after 30 years at SREB, 16 of them as President.

The Southern Regional Education Board, America's first interstate compact for education, is headquartered in Atlanta. It has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. The Annual Report - available online at www.sreb.org - summarizes the organization's work and programs.