wfn.org | FALL EVENTS SET: NCCCUSA PUBLIC EDUCATION POLICY

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email:  news@ncccusa.org    Web:  www.ncccusa.org

80NCC7/7/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FALL EVENTS SET ON IMPLICATIONS OF NCC PUBLIC EDUCATION
POLICY

 NEW YORK - The National Council of Churches Committee
on Public Education is actively cultivating a national
dialogue around the NCC's proposed policy statement, "The
Churches and the Public Schools at the Close of the 20th
Century," which is moving toward a vote at the NCC's
November 1999 General Assembly.  The statement makes a
strong united witness for quality education for all public
school students.

 Two events early this fall will help denominational
leaders explore implications of the policy statement and
ways that the NCC can support churches as they implement it.
One is in Chicago Sept. 22 with the Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry,
president of the United Church of Christ, as host.  The
other is set for Sept. 30 in Washington, D.C., with the Rev.
Dr. Staccato Powell, executive director of NCC National
Ministries.

 The committee also is focusing on the matter of church-
school partnerships in local communities.  In April,
committee members met with U.S. Department of Education
representatives responsible for religious liaison - the
first in what is hoped will be a series to lay the
groundwork for appropriate church-school partnerships.  The
committee also is sponsoring a forum on this topic at the
NCC's 50th anniversary celebration in November in Cleveland.

 "Advocates will come from the churches where something
is going on related to the community's public schools," said
Dr. Joe Leonard, director of the NCC's Ministries in
Christian Education.  "We can offer congregations something
that is practical, that they can grab hold of and do.  That
kind of involvement provides the energy for advocacy at the
state and national level."

 MCE has contracted with the Rev. Dave Brown, a
Presbyterian minister from Federal Way, Wash., to staff the
Committee on Public Education.  He succeeds Dr. Nanette
Roberts, who recently retired from the staff of the United
Church of Christ.

 (See NCC News Release of June 4, 1999, "Quality,
Equality of U.S. Public Education to be Addressed in
Ecumenical Pilot Project in Pennsylvania," on another
element in the NCC's work to increase the quality - and
equality - of U.S. public education for all children.)

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