PHOENIX – Approximately 150 Arizonans, including eight Cochise County residents, will gather to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining quality teachers when they meet in Prescott on April 27-30. The 92nd Arizona Town Hall, titled “Who Will Teach Our Children?” aims to propose solutions for improving Arizona’s ability to attract the best educators for our children.

The three-day session will be held at the Prescott Resort & Conference Center.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and Arthur E. Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, will address Arizona Town Hall participants at noon on Monday, April 28.   Levine is a past- president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He also served as chair of the higher education program, chair of the Institute for Educational management and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Marc Tucker, founder, president and chief executive officer of the National Center on Education and the Economy, will speak at 7 p.m. Monday evening on the connections between educational policy and economic strength. Tucker created the first Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and is a founder and vice chair of the board of directors of America’s Choice.  With former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, Tucker wrote Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations, which won the Sidney Hillman prize and was named by Business Week one of its Ten Best Books of 1992.

The University of Arizona College of Education, under the leadership of Dean of Education Ron Marx and Professor Walter Doyle, prepared a detailed background report to prepare participants for substantive discussions and consensus-based policy recommendations.

After the conference, the Town Hall’s recommendations will be available on its Web site on May 9.  The recommendations will be combined with the background report into a final report and formally published in July 2008.

Cochise County Residents include:

• Ann Littrell, Juvenile Judge, Cochise  County Superior Court

• Chuck Hoyack, Dean of Instruction, Cochise  College, Douglas Campus; Chair, Douglas Unified School District Board

• Neel Overman, Buyer & Contracts  Administrator, Freeport McMoRan Copper Queen Mine

• Judith A. Gignac, General Manager, Bella  Vista Ranches;  Former Chair, Arizona Town Hall

• Henrietta Huisking, City Councilmember

• Mike Rutherford, General Contractor, RDI,  Inc

• Flora Simon, Chair, Education Department,  University of Arizona-South

• Jane Strain, Instructor, Western  International University; Board Member, Cochise College; U.S. Army (Ret.)

About Arizona Town Hall

For more than 46 years, Arizona Town Hall has served as a “think tank” of Arizona leaders.  Town Hall recommendations serve as a valuable resource for policymakers because they do not represent the agenda of a particular group or political perspective.  Instead, Arizona Town Hall reports contain the informed consensus of Arizonans from different political parties, professions, and geographic areas of the state.

Due to limited space and the balancing of perspectives required by the Town Hall process, participation in discussion is by invitation only. However, attendance at the meal programs is open to the public (subject to pre-registration and availability). For more information about the Arizona Town Hall, visit www.aztownhall.org or call 602-252-9600.