WASHINGTON, D.C. (CapitalWirePR)  February 19, 2008 -- Dialogue on Diversity presents the 2008 edition of the Public Policy Forum, with the title The Heat Comes Early: Civil Discourse in a Contentious Year.  The Forum purpose is to convene people of many cultures all working for a reasoned civic consciousness and for economic viability through entrepreneurship. This year three basic topic areas dominate the agenda: Housing, Immigration and Education.

• Where:  Gold Room (2168),  Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
• When:   Thursday, March 6, 2008,  8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
• Who Should Attend: Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals, Members of Women’s Organizations, Students and Congressional Staff, Interested Citizens, all Friends of Dialogue on Diversity.

In each of these three policy realms a panel of scholars, private and public sector experts, advocates,  members of the Congress, and public officials come together to analyze the social, economic, and policy dimensions.  
 
The Forum's introductory session, getting underway at 9:30 a.m., features Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, an assistant to the Speaker, to welcome attending policy aficionados with a skilled assessment of the legislative landscape for the months ahead.

The Midday session brings a new celebrity on the Washington scene, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who brings us up to date on the mix of creative imagination and sheer energy needed to reconstitute a struggling urban school system.
 
Co-hosted with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) the housing panel takes up the continuing mortgage crisis.  With foreclosure rates still climbing, the Forum will explore the future of the borrowers in distress, and will outline a range of immediate measures urgently required to stabilize the housing sector, whose health and robustness are key ingredients of national life both economically and socially.    

The lineup of speakers for the housing segment includes Aracely Panameño, Anna Alvarez Boyd, chief of CHCI's HOGAR program, and Rep. Joe Baca of California. OGAR divison, HOGFAR

Immigration experts will fit the present facts of economic life and civic existence into the historic framework of a society of immigrants, assessing the prospects for legislative changes, and analyzing the likely effects of these changes on recent and future newcomers within our borders.   Among panelists are Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, John Trasviña, President of MALDEF,  Brent Wilkes, Executive Director, LULAC, and Dr Jeanne Batalova of the Migration Policy Institute.
 
With only a small percentage of minorities graduating from college, and while many high school graduates are ill-outfitted to take on productive roles in society, think tank experts and members of Congress join to review the critical problems of the American educational system and to sketch a role for imaginative public policy measures to solve them.
 
Expert speakers on tap for the education seminar are Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, Reg Weaver, President of the National Education Association, and Sarita E. Brown, head of Excelencia in Education.

The Forum's midday session features a Congressional Roundtable reviewing the 2008 legislative picture in its many parts.  The roster of participating House members includes Rep. Hilda Solis, California, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, Rep. Louise Capps of California, and Rep. Marie K. Hirono, Hawaii.

Register by e-mail (dialog.div@prodigy.net) or telephone (703-631-0650) to Dialogue on Diversity to reserve your space. No fee for this Program. Continental Breakfast and Lunch Provided.  Drawing for Door Prizes at Conclusion of Forum.

About Dialogue on Diversity
Dialogue on Diversity, a network of women and men of the country’s diverse ethnic and cultural communities -- entrepreneurs, professionals, and workers from the non-profit and public service worlds -- offers a yearly cycle of forums, conferences, and symposia, capped by a stellar awards program, all with a focus on sharpening a civic consciousness on essential public policy issues, and on achieving economic viability through skilled entrepreneurship.  The Dialogue is a non-profit §501(c)(3) organization.  For further information visit www.dialogueondiversity.org