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Celebrating Education For All Week: Highlighting the Regional UNESCO Literacy Conferences

(Janine Sides/State Dept.)

Perri Klass, Anita McBride, Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst Date: Thursday, 26 April 2007 Time: 11:00 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) View Webchat Transcript

In honor of Education for All week, please join us for a discussion highlighting UNESCO and the role it plays in developing and promoting literacy programs worldwide. Participants will discuss the White House Conference on Global Literacy, held last year in New York, and the first of six Regional Literacy Conferences, held last month in Doha. Participants will also discuss why literacy is important in helping countries pursue the Education for All goals. Please join Dr. Perri Klass, Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, Anita McBride, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Mrs. Laura Bush, and Russ Whitehust, Director of the Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences for this online discussion.

Guest Biography:

Dr. Perri Klass is a Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University. For the past 12 years she has had a pediatric primary care practice at Dorchester House, a neighborhood health center in Boston. Through her role as Medical Director of the Reach Out and Read National Center, she has trained pediatricians around the country in how to integrate books and literacy into routine pediatric care.

Anita McBride was appointed Assistant to President George W. Bush and Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush in September 2006. As Mrs. Bush’s Chief of Staff, Mrs. McBride oversees the First Lady’s policy, press, correspondence, scheduling and advance, speechwriting, and social offices. Mrs. McBride directs the staff’s work on the wide variety of issues in which Mrs. Bush is involved — including education, youth development, women’s rights and health, historic preservation, natural conservation, diplomacy, the arts, and ending pandemic diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst was appointed by President George W. Bush to a six-year term as the first Director of the Institute of Education Sciences. The Institute conducts, supports and disseminates research on education practices that improve academic achievement, statistics on the condition of education in the United States and evaluations of the effectiveness of federal and other education programs. As director, Whitehurst administers the Institute, including the activities of the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance and the National Center for Education Research.