The Education Debt: Improving Student Outcomes.

Since 2006, Gloria Ladson-Billings has been urging education researchers, teacher educators, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to change the narrative of the deficit language of "achievement gap" to the historically, economically, politically, and morally accurate term "education debt." This presentation addresses how the education debt continues to mount in the midst of a pandemic that threatens to exacerbate education disparities. Finally, the talk will examine possible solutions through a "hard re-set" for education.

Gloria Ladson-Billings is Professor Emerita and former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor in Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and was a faculty affiliate in the departments of Educational Policy Studies, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis, and Afro American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the current president of the National Academy of Education. Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students as well as critical race theory applications to education. She is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children.