WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 --  America's urban school leaders will discuss and debate the education platforms of the nation's leading presidential candidates in a face-off with representatives from Vice President Gore's and Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaigns at a National Town Hall Meeting Oct. 27 in Los Angeles.

 With education on the front burner of issues in the presidential race, urban educators will have an opportunity to zero in on issues facing big-city school systems and inner-city schoolchildren in a forum being held in conjunction with the Council of the Great City Schools' 44th Annual Fall Conference, Oct. 25-29.

Moderated by education correspondent Claudio Sanchez of National Public Radio, the program, "Urban Education and the Presidential Campaign," will feature education advisers from the Gore and Bush camps in a debate with a panel of four urban school leaders, including Houston Independent School District Superintendent Rod Paige and New York's Rochester City School District Superintendent Clifford Janey.

 The 90-minute forum, scheduled from 2:30 to 4 p.m., will be held at Los Angeles' Regal Biltmore Hotel, site of the conference. 

More than 800 urban school superintendents, senior administrators, board members and deans of colleges of education will convene during the five-day conference to discuss issues such as closing student achievement gaps, financing big-city school systems, and strengthening professional development, as well as bilingual education and urban school leadership and governance.

Under the banner "Urban Education:   Achievement and Diversity in the New Millennium," the conference will feature speakers such as:

Dr. Benjamin S. Carson Sr., the renowned pediatric neurosurgeon andauthor from Johns Hopkins University (Oct. 26 lunch);

Multiculturalist Ronald Takaki of the University of California-Berkeley (Oct. 27 breakfast); and

Henry G. Cisneros, former Univision Communications president and chiefoperating officer, who just recently departed the nation's largestSpanish-language television broadcaster to launch American CityVista, a homebuilding firm (Oct. 27 lunch).

The Council will also announce its urban educator of the year at the Richard R. Green Award Banquet on Oct. 26, with legendary vocalist Nancy Wilson performing. The conference is hosted by the Los Angeles Unified School District.  

The Council of the Great City Schools is the only organization in the nation exclusively representing the needs of urban public schools.  The coalition represents 55 of the nation's largest urban public school systems.