Join a Community Conversation about Public Education and How Proposed Legislative Action Could Impact Milwaukee Karran Harper Royal Karran Harper Royal is a parent and education advocate in New Orleans and is the Assistant Director of Pyramid Community Parent Resource Center, where she is the co-host of Pyramid Parent Talk, a radio show on WBOK radio in New Orleans. Mrs. Harper Royal, a tireless advocate for students with disabilities, has appeared in a number of broadcasts and publications related to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and public education reform. Mrs. Harper Royal is a contributor to Research on Reforms, an educational foundation dedicated to providing information and insight on the educational development of schools in New Orleans, and is a member of the National Journey for Justice Alliance for Coalition for Community Schools, the Louisiana Coalition for Public Education, and the New Orleans Education Equity Roundtable. She has served on the national board of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD), as a member of which she participated in a Congressional Black Caucus briefing on combating the mental health stigma in the African American community and appeared in a video with Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee and former US Surgeon General David Satcher. Post Katrina, Mrs. Harper Royal served on the Recovery School District Advisory Committee as well as on the Facilities Oversight Advisory Committee for New Orleans public schools. Kristen Buras, Ph.D. Kristen Buras, a Wisconsin-Spencer Fellow, received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is the author of Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance, which chronicles the past decade of education reform in New Orleans. Additionally, she is coauthor of Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans, which was recognized for its outstanding contribution by the Curriculum Studies Division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is also co-editor of The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles. A co-founder and director of the New Orleans-based Urban South Grassroots Research Collective for Public Education, Dr. Buras was granted the Distinguished Scholar-Activist Award by Critical Educators for Social Justice of AERA. Her research on education reform in New Orleans has been widely published, including in journals such as Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Peabody Journal of Education, Race Ethnicity and Education, Critical Studies in Education, and Berkeley Review of Education. Buras served as associate editor for the Journal of Education Policy and is a current member of the review panel of the National Education Policy Center’s Think Twice think tank. Raynard Sanders, Ed.D. Raynard Sanders has over thirty-five years of experience in teaching, educational administration, and economic and community development. As a principal, he developed the first high-school DNA lab in the state of Louisiana and created The Creole Cottage Project, an innovative school-to-work program through which his students built and renovated houses in the school’s community. Dr. Sanders has also served as professor and Director in the Master of Arts in Urban Education Program at Southern University at New Orleans and was the Executive Director of The National Faculty at New Orleans, a national professional development agency designed to improve the quality of teaching in poor-performing schools throughout the Mississippi Delta. Most recently, his work has been around educational equity, through which he has provided consulting services to numerous school districts and community groups across the country. He is also the host of The New Orleans Imperative, a weekly radio show that nurtures and fosters public awareness around public education. Dr. Sanders received his B.A. from Dillard University in New Orleans, a Masters of Educational Administration from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and his Doctorate of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. For more information, call (414) 475-8284 or visit mpsmke.com/supportmps. Start. Stay. Succeed. ©2015 Milwaukee Public Schools