This week, the Council of the Great City Schools hosts its 58th annual fall conference in Milwaukee, hosted by MPS, and some big names in the world of education and beyond will be on hand for the event, which runs Oct. 22-26.
The conference -- "Fresh Water, Fresh Thinking in Urban Education" -- takes place at the Wisconsin Center, and will bring about 1,000 school superintendents to Milwaukee.
Among the speakers are College Board President David Coleman, Girl Scouts of America CEO Anna Maria Chavez and astrophysicist/TV science commentator Neil deGrasse Tyson. NPR's Claudio Sanchez will moderate a town hall discussion on Oct. 24.
Those events may be the bread and butter, but the meat of the conference are the roughly 80 discussion sessions that crack open opinion, expertise and knowledge sharing on topics like teacher effectiveness and evaluation, implementation of the Common Core State Standards at the district and school level, deferred maintenance on school buildings and more.
On Thursday, the conference will also name its "Urban Educator of the Year."
I'm hoping to check out the resources displays and sit in on a few discussions. I'll report back afterward.
"This conference is an opportunity for urban school leaders from around the country to see some of our success stories and it's one way for us to see what's working in other communities," MPS Superintendent Dr. Darienne Driver said in a statement. "Exchanging best practices is a great way to drive innovation in education."
You can find out more about the conference, its agenda and events here.
All public education eyes will be on Milwaukee this week. Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #cgcs14.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
