Welcome to Generation All's first monthly newsletter. We hope it keeps you updated with our work and inspired about revitalizing Chicago's neighborhood public high schools. 

As May begins, we want to inform you about last month's activities and take a peek into the future of Generation All. 

• On April 14, many of you attended Dr. Pedro Noguera's talk about specific policies and practices that would increase equity and excellence in our educational system. If you missed it or would like to review the information again, find his slides here and watch the video of his talk here. We ended the evening by hearing from a panel of CPS students, teacher, and principal. Find the recording of the panel here. Please share these links with your interested friends and colleagues. Additionally, CANTV will broadcast the event on: 

May 8th, 12:00 PM, CAN TV21

• For the last 8 months, our 40 member Steering Committee has been meeting to craft a city-wide plan on revitalizing neighborhood public high schools. On April 23, we met to build consensus on our drivers and recommendations. Once these recommendations coalesce into a draft, we plan on hosting multiple focus groups around the city. If you are interested in hosting or joining a focus group, please let us know here.

On April 20th and 21st, the Frameworks Institute was in Chicago and facilitated learning at the Education Writers Association's National Seminar and at the Chicago Community Trust around framing the narrative on public education to ensure productive discussions and well-informed policy decisions. Learn more about Frameworks here.

Generation All staff and several members of our Steering Committee attended and participated in the American Educational Research Association's Annual Meeting that was held in Chicago.  Its focus, "On Justice," aimed to "make room for democratized knowledge and knowledge production in which the experiences of all people are shaped by principles and practices of justice." Check out #AERA15 for participants' takeaways on Twitter or visit the AERA website for video of key sessions and research presented.

 

Generation All also attended the second annual Network for Public Education's Conference last month. Check out #NPEChicago on Twitter and watch videos of keynote speakers and panels here. We recommend watching University of Oregon's Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education Yong Zhao's speech which received a rousing standing ovation.      

 

On March 13, members of our Steering Committee visited  the Convergence Academies  at  Tilden Career Community Academy H.S.  to learn more about how connected learning can be a driver for whole school reform. 

On March 2-4, Generation All executive director Beatriz Ponce de León attended the second Carnegie Foundation Summit on Improvement in Education. Participants learned to use improvement science to help guide their education systems improvement work. Recap the conference through a well-designed Storify site here.