News & Events Education Experts Jay Greene and Jennifer Hochschild to Discuss the Needs of Public Schools at Amherst College Jan. 21

January 12, 2008                   

AMHERST, Mass.—Jay P. Greene, endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and Jennifer Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, will participate in a discussion titled “What Do Our Public Schools Need?” at a forum at Amherst College Wednesday, January 21. The event, which will take place on campus at 4:30 p.m. in Converse Hall’s Cole Assembly Room, is part of the Amherst College Colloquium Series (ACCS) and is free and open to the public. 

Greene, who is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, conducts research and writes about several education policy-related topics, including school choice, high school graduation rates, accountability and special education. Articles featuring his studies have appeared in many policy and academic journals—The Public Interest, Education Next, Education Finance and Policy and the British Journal of Political Science, to name a few—and in several major newspapers, such as The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In addition, his research was cited four times in the Supreme Court’s opinions in the landmark Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case on school vouchers. Author of Education Myths, Greene received his B.A. in history from Tufts University and his Ph.D. from the Government Department at Harvard University.

Hochschild’s work focuses on the intersection of American politics and political philosophy—particularly in the areas of race, ethnicity and immigration—as well as educational policy, public opinion and political culture. Co-author of The American Dream and the Public Schools and author of Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation; The New American Dilemma: Liberal Democracy and School Desegregation; and What’s Fair: American Beliefs about Distributive Justice, her current project is tentatively titled Blurring Racial Boundaries: Skin Color, Immigration, Multiracialism, and DNA. She has received fellowships or awards from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and Guggenheim Foundation, among others, and was twice a visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study. She has also served as a consultant or expert witness in several school desegregation cases, most importantly Yonkers Board of Education v. New York State. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Amherst’s ACCS explores pressing societal concerns in depth and features renowned speakers taking divergent positions. Each colloquium includes two days of seminars with the speakers and culminates in an open forum that is free to the general public. It is funded through the Office of the President and the generosity of Michael Keiser ’67.