How Much Can Education Serve as a Mechanism for the Integration of Minorities and Immigrants?

Experiences from Germany and the United States

Immigration remains a political football in national and regional debates in Germany and the U.S. with clear consequences for electoral outcomes. Behind the scenes, the actual integration of persons with a migration background proceeds on a daily basis. Education has been a central mechanism for integration in both Germany and the United States. This seminar will identify specific educational programs, analyze the challenges they face, and evaluate their success. Özcan Mutlu, former member of the German Bundestag, will present the German perspective, and HollyAnn Freso-Moore, Principal of the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School’s Harvard Street campus, will present the American perspective.

Join AGI and the Heinrich Boell Foundation North America for a transatlantic discussion on integration and education.

Özcan Mutlu is a Turkish-German Green Party politician and an expert on educational and integration policies. Between 2013 and 2017, he was Member of the German Bundestag. Prior to that he served as a Member of the House of Representatives in the State of Berlin from 1999 to 2013. From 1992 to 1999 he was an elected member of the district council of Kreuzberg. He is the founding member of the bilingual German-Turkish-European-School-Berlin. Thanks to his tremendous efforts, the Berlin International University of Applied Sciences was established in 2014. He has been a member of the International Advisory Board of the Bahcesehir University Istanbul since 2012. As a Marshall-Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund and Young Leader of the Atlantik Brücke e.V. (ACG), he is active in the transatlantic dialogue as well. He also is Young Leader of the BMW-Quandt-Foundation and Mentor for the Deutschland Stiftung Integration. In 2007 he was selected as German-Israeli-Young-Leader of the Bertelsmann Foundation. In 2018 he became Mercator Senior Fellow of the Istanbul-Policy-Center (IPC) at the Sabanci University Istanbul. Since April 2018 Özcan Mutlu is the honorary President of the Para-Sport-Federation of Berlin.

HollyAnn Freso-Moore is the principal of the Carlos Rosario Charter School, Harvard Street Campus in the District of Columbia, which is the first adult charter school in the nation. Carlos Rosario offers a wide variety of classes for English Language Learners who come from over 80 countries, speak more than 34 languages, and range in age from 16-84 years old. She passionately ensures high quality, student centered instruction for 1500 students in a safe and compassionate environment. During her four years of leading the Tier 1 rated school, she has overseen the development of faculty led PLCs and the implementation of e-testing to strengthen data driven instruction. Before becoming principal she worked as an ESL instructor for more than a decade, assisting with adult education teacher professional development-ranging from teaching speaking and writing to low literacy ELLs, project based learning, and utilizing technology for beginning level ELLs. In 2012, her efforts were honored with the D.C. STARS Tribute Most Outstanding Adult Teacher award. Ms. Freso-Moore graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in English Literature with a concentration in Diaspora Literature. She was conferred an MA in Educational Leadership from Trinity University, and is presently working on her PhD in Education Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Freso-Moore is an immigrant and naturalized citizen of the United States, hailing from Guyana.

Please contact Ms. Elizabeth Caruth with any questions at ecaruth@aicgs.org. A light luncheon will be served.

This event is generously supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation North America.