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American Progress Events

Today at the Center

Evaluating Differently Center for American Progress

9:00am – 11:00am

The inadequacy of teacher evaluation systems has received a great deal of recent attention. Many districts have systems that don't give teachers useful feedback, don't differentiate among teachers, and give very few teachers unsatisfactory ratings. States and districts also fail to use the information from teacher evaluation systems to make important decisions about teachers’ careers, such as whether to award tenure, how to compensate teachers, and what career advancement opportunities are appropriate.

A number of states and districts are rethinking their evaluation practices, prompted in part by the Obama administration's focus on teacher effectiveness within a number of federal education programs. Join our expert panelists for a dynamic conversation about what a new generation of systems could look like and how state and local policy might support their development.

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Tortured Law Center for American Progress

6:30pm – 8:00pm

After a five-year investigation, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility concluded in a report released in February that Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee "exercised poor judgment" for their role in drafting the 2002 memos that authorized the use of techniques otherwise understood to constitute torture in detainee interrogations. However, a Department of Justice official overruled OPR's recommendation and determined that the officials should not be referred to their respective bar associations for investigation of professional misconduct, spurring criticism of the investigation and broader questions about the lawyers' intentions.

Please join the Center for American Progress and the Alliance for Justice for a discussion about the OPR report and next steps toward torture accountability. A screening of Alliance for Justice's short documentary film, "Tortured Law" will proceed a panel discussion moderated by Ken Gude, Associate Director of the Center for American Progress International Rights and Responsibilities program.

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Upcoming Events

A National Approach to Career Navigation for Working Learners

March 11, 2010, 9:00am – 11:00am Center for American Progress

The United States has no coherent, planned career navigation system, although work and learning choices impact how much Americans pay for education, how much we earn over our lifetime, and even access to health and retirement benefits. In this way, career guidance is as essential as education and training to ensuring economic opportunity.

In its paper "A National Approach To Career Navigation for Working Learners," the Center for American Progress seeks to open a national dialogue about how to leverage emerging models of career guidance from the public, nonprofit, union, education, and private sectors to develop a national vision and approach to career development.

Deliberation, Obstruction or Dysfunction?

March 12, 2010, 9:30am – 11:00am

The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1917

Whether or not a relatively small minority of the U.S. Senate should be able to block the policies put forward by the president and majorities in both houses of Congress has been a matter of great controversy in American politics since before the Civil War. Today, however, the tactical tools available to the minority are being used more aggressively than at any time in our history and the impact on the nature and quality of American government is greater than ever. On Friday, March 12 the Center for American Progress in cooperation with the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies of American University will sponsor a symposium the modern Senate and how current practices are impacting the quality of government.

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