A distinguished panel of professionals in the education and policy arenas will discuss parental involvement and school choice at 2 p.m. Nov. 14 at the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd, Room C-100, located on the concourse level.

Panelists are John Norquist, former Milwaukee mayor and director of the Congress for New Urbanism, an organization that seeks alternative solutions to urban sprawl; Barbara Radner, director of DePaul’s Center for Urban Education and the Assessment Center for the university’s School for New Learning; Sara Slaughter, director of the McCormick Tribune Foundation’s Education Program; and John Simmons, president of Strategic Initiative, a group aiming to improve student performance through education and corporate partnership.

The panel discussion will be moderated by Jon Korfmacher, an associate professor at the Erikson Institute and research partner with the national Early Head Start Research Consortium.

The panel discussion is hosted by DePaul’s Egan Urban Center, which addresses critical urban problems through collaborative, community-based programs and services.

The panel discussion will focus on the preliminary findings of a study conducted by DePaul’s sociology department and the Egan Urban Center, which suggests that parents are most influenced by social networks of relatives, neighbors and friends rather than a formal, rational process when making school choice decisions. According to Kiljoong Kim, research director at the center and convener of the discussion, findings of the study have implications for education policies, including the “No Child Left Behind Act,” the federal law predicated on the assumption that parents will make informed decisions about their children’s education based on a school’s test scores, dropout rates and other rankings.

The discussion is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Kim at 773/325-4957.