Alethea Frazier Raynor is a principal associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and co–guest editor of this issue of Voices in Urban Education. Alethea Raynor rejoined the Institute staff to lead the New Orleans research team for the 2009 Emerging Knowledge Forum. She has worked on education issues in post-Katrina New Orleans since 2006, when she joined the National Coalition for Quality Education in New Orleans. Previously, she headed the Institute’s team in providing technical assistance to Carnegie Corporation’s Schools for a New Society initiative and, in collaboration with the technical support partners, in developing a final case study of the progress and challenges of systemic high school reform in three of the sites. Prior to coming to the Institute, she taught at Clark University and, most recently, founded the Risers Academy for Young Men, an all-male pilot program in the Savannah-Chatham County (SC) Public Schools designed to help young Black males achieve academic success. She has worked as a classroom teacher, guidance counselor, equity specialist, and central office administrator in Boston, Baltimore, and the District of Columbia public schools, and at the state education level providing professional development for principals and district leaders in Maryland. She holds a B.A. in sociology from Boston University, a M.Ed. in counseling from the University of Massachusetts–Boston, and a Ph.D. in education from Clark University.
Andrew Lachman is executive director of the Connecticut Center for School Change after serving for 13 years as Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of Community School District Two in New York City. At District Two, Mr. Lachman served as one of the senior advisors on policy and program development and as director of external affairs. He played a key role in the district's implementation of standards-based education reform and assisted the superintendent in developing and managing innovative educational programs, professional development initiatives for improving teaching and learning, and strategies for enhancing school leadership. He has more than 25 years of experience as a program developer, fundraiser and administrator in non-profit and government agencies. Mr. Lachman has overall responsibility for the Center and its operations and programs.
Benjamin Sherman is principal of the East-West School of International Studies in Queens, New York.
At the time the article was written Bill Purcell was mayor of Nashville, Tennessee. He is currently director of the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Carrie M. Leana is the George H. Love Professor of Organizations and Management at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh, and also teaches in the School of Medicine and the School of Public and International Affairs.
Christine Wiltshire is an instructional coach at The Learning Community, a public charter school serving children and families from Central Falls, Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Daniella A. Cook is an assistant professor at the University of Tulsa School of Education who has done extensive research in New Orleans. Daniella is an accomplished organizer, educator and facilitator. She has worked with state level non-profits in North Carolina on child well being and education. Cook served as the Matrix Project Director at the Institute for African American Research at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. This project was designed to increase the math achievement of African American kids in two rural counties in North Carolina. As the former Education Fellow with the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute, Cook increased the visibility of this non-profit group focused on child well-being in communities across North Carolina. Prior to this, Cook was the Fair-Testing Organizer for the Common Sense Foundation in Raleigh where she mobilized communities statewide to reform North Carolina's testing program. Since January 2006, she has served as the Project Coordinator for The National Coalition for Quality Education in New Orleans (NCQENO) since January 2006. In addition, she was a member of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform’s New Orleans Case Study Team for the 2009 Emerging Knowledge Forum.
Deborah (Debi) King directs the Institute's organizational development efforts, including facilitating communication and collaboration between the New York and Providence offices, coordinating with Brown's Office of Human Resources on performance development planning, and serving on the Institute's Leadership Team and Strategic Management Group. She works with education leaders across the country to develop the instructional and organizational capacity of schools and school systems to make data-informed decisions that focus on student achievement. Prior to joining the Institute, she served in a variety of capacities including classroom teacher, curriculum specialist, program coordinator, university instructor, principal, educational consultant, and director of professional development services. She holds a BA in liberal studies from Loyola Marymount University, a master's degree in educational administration from Azusa Pacific University, and a doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy from the University of Utah. Her recent publications include her doctoral study, "Principals' Perceptions of Changes in Practice Resulting from Professional Development Programs" and two articles in Educational Leadership.
Elizabeth Richards is artistic director of Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, an urban charter school in Providence, Rhode Island, and a graduate of the Master’s in Urban Education Policy program at Brown University.
Ellen Foley is Associate Director, District Redesign and Leadership at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and Assistant Clinical Professor, Master's in Urban Education Policy Program, Brown University. Ellen is responsible for leading the design of District Redesign and Leadership research studies and convenings from concept to product and for managing cross-functional internal teams and external consultants. She also leads the development and production of a variety of tools for district leaders, oversees research and evaluation related to national District Redesign and Leadership field work. She is an assistant clinical professor at Brown, teaching in the Master's in Urban Education Policy Program. Prior to joining the Institute, she was a research specialist at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, where she worked on the evaluation of Children Achieving, Philadelphia's districtwide education reform effort. Ellen holds a BA in political science from Boston College and an MSEd and doctorate in education policy from the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary research interest is urban education, with a focus on the central office's role in leading reform efforts. She co-chairs the American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group on Districts in Research and Reform.
Frances Gallo is superintendent of Central Falls School District, Central Falls, Rhode Island.
At the time the article was written Frank Barnes was a senior associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. He is currently chief accountability officer for Boston Public Schools.
At the time the article was written, Glynda Hull was professor of education in language, literacy, and culture in the Graduate School of Education of the University of California, Berkeley. Currently she is a professor of English Education, New York University.
Jacob Mishook is a senior research associate in district redesign and leadership at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Jacob's work includes managing the Institute’s work related to Arts Education, managing internal evaluation and documentation of the Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance as well as enhancing the rigor of the research and data analysis of the District Redesign and Leadership work in sites. Previously, Jacob worked as an educational researcher in the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and sociology with honors in education from Stanford University and a doctorate in educational theory and policy from Pennsylvania State University. His interests include school reform, assessment, and arts education. His dissertation examined the impact of high-stakes testing on arts education at both arts-focused and non-arts-focused elementary schools.
At the time the article was written, Janice Bloom was a student at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Currently she is program co-director of the College Inquiry and College Knowledge Programs, Institute for Student Achievement. Previously, she was an assistant professor in the Education Studies Department at Eugene Lang College/The New School for Liberal Studies, where she taught educational sociology, history and policy, and teaching and learning in urban schools. She was a 2005-2006 ASHE/Lumina fellow. Her research has focused on issues of social class, urban schooling, and access to higher education. Her work at Lang included helping to create and run its Institute for Urban Education’s college transition programs.
At the time the article was written Jessica Zacher was a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education of the University of California, Berkeley. Currently she is an assistant professor of Teacher Education and of Liberal Studies, College of Education, California State University, Long Beach.
Joanna Brown is director of education organizing at the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago.
Joanne Thompson is a research associate in district redesign and leadership at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Joanne researches general resources, compiles and analyzes data, compiles annotated bibliographies, writes reports and publications, and helps plan and prepare various meetings and site work. Before coming to the Institute, she was a teaching assistant in the classics department at Brown University. Joanne received a BA in classics and Spanish from the University of Missouri and has completed the coursework for a master's degree in classics at Brown.
Joan E. Talbert is senior research scholar and Co-Director of the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching (CRC) at Stanford University. She received a BA from Vassar College, with a major in Sociology and minor in Child Study, and PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington (1978), with specialization in organizational theory, stratification, and quantitative research methods. Her publications include books and articles on teachers’ professional communities, teacher career patterns, public and private school organization, federal education policy, district reform, and methods for research on context effects on teaching.
Jonathan Eckert is an assistant professor of education at Wheaton College in Illinois and a consultant to TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement. Dr. Eckert came to Wheaton with twelve years of experience teaching and coaching intermediate and middle school students in Illinois and Tennesee. He spent 2008-2009 as Teaching Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education learning and attempting to inform education policy. His research interests include teaching effectiveness, measures of that effectiveness, and the interaction of practitioners and policymakers in the service of student learning. The providential mandate to love and serve others drives his desire to place passionate, effective teachers in every classroom.
James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. His work explores the policy implementation process at the state, school district, school and classroom levels, focusing on intergovernmental relations and policy-practice relations. While building on the policy implementation research tradition, Spillane has worked to develop a cognitive perspective on the implementation process, exploring the substantive ideas about reforming instruction that local policy-makers, both administrators and teachers, come to understand from state and national reforms. Spillane is also interested in organizational leadership and change and is currently undertaking an empirical investigation of the practice of leadership in urban elementary schools that are working to improve mathematics, science and literacy instruction. In this work, Spillane conceptualizes organizational leadership as a distributed practice involving formal and informal leaders, followers and a variety of organizational tools and artifacts. He is the associate editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Kath Connolly is director of partnerships at The Learning Community, a public charter school serving children and families from Central Falls, Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
At the time the article was written, Lori Chajet was a teacher at the East Side Community High School, New York City. Currently she is director of training and program development for Homebase, created by the Center for Human Environments, City University of New York Graduate Center.
Margaret Terry Orr is director of the Future School Leaders Academy at Bank Street College.
Margaret Balch-Gonzalez is a staff editor and a research analyst at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and manages a range of editorial projects for publication by the Institute and provides research, documentation, and liaison support for several major Institute projects. Prior to joining the Institute in 2004, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, held corporate marketing and product development positions, and taught K-8 science and ESL in Rhode Island, Argentina, and Ecuador. She has a BA in biology from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island.
Marla Ucelli-Kashyap is director of district redesign and leadership at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and guest editor of issue number 27 of Voices in Urban Education. Marla Ucelli directs the Institute's work in district redesign, which responds to district requests to build their capacity in key areas such as central office infrastructure and school district organization. From 2000 to 2002, her primary responsibility was School Communities that Work: A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts, culminating in the publication of the Portfolio for District Redesign, a set of interrelated frameworks, tools, and other resources to help school districts make the transition toward a new kind of support system, a "smart district." Prior to joining the Institute, she was associate director in the Equal Opportunity Division at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she was responsible for the Foundation's efforts to improve the education and development of children going to school in poor urban communities in the U.S. From 1990 to 1998, Marla was special assistant for education to New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean. In that post, she was the governor's senior advisor on state policy issues in K–12 and higher education, as well as on national education activities. Prior to that, she was special assistant to then-president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Ernest L. Boyer. Marla holds a BA from New York University and an MPA from Rutgers. She frequently speaks and writes on issues related to urban district redesign, philanthropy in education, and urban community colleges.
Michael Grady is the deputy director at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. He also serves as principal investigator of a major collaboration between the Institute and the National League of Cities that will work with mayors, municipal leaders, and their education policy advisers on strategies to increase the public's awareness, participation and stake in local school-improvement initiatives in the context of No Child Left Behind. Prior to joining the Institute, Mike was a senior research associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where he managed the research and evaluation portfolio. He has also served as director of research and evaluation for a major urban school district, research associate for a court-appointed committee charged with developing and evaluating magnet schools, and high school teacher in the U.S. and abroad. He has conducted research on the Comer School Development Program, educational equity initiatives, and school-based management at the district level. Mike's research and policy interests include urban education reform, educational equity, community and parent engagement, and research and evaluation design. Mike holds an EdM and an EdD from Harvard University.
Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology, Women’s Studies and Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY, has taught at CUNY since 1990. Previously she taught at the University of Pennsylvania for more than a decade. Her research focuses on youth in schools, communities and prisons, developed through critical feminist theory and method.
Milbrey W. McLaughlin is professor emerita of education and public policy, founding director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, and co-director of the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching at Stanford University. Dr. McLaughlin's research combines studies of K-12 education policy in the U.S and work on the broad question of community-school collaboration to support youth development. Her research on public education focuses on how school teaching is shaped by "context" issues such as organizational policy, social-cultural conditions of the schools, districts and communities. Within communities, she is involved with local efforts engage whole communities-schools, community organizations and agencies, parents, faith-based institutions-in developing new strategies and capacity to promote youth development broadly considered. Dr. McLaughlin is Co-Director of the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching, an education research center that analyzes how teaching and learning are shaped by their contexts and the connection between teacher learning communities and educational reforms. She is Director of the John Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities, a partnership between Stanford University and Bay Area communities to build new practices, knowledge and capacity for youth development and learning.
Mónica Byrne-Jiménez is assistant professor in Foundations, Leadership, and Policy Studies at Hofstra University.
Philip Weinberg is the principal of the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology, a school of 1,250 students located in Brooklyn, New York. The school is comprised of students from all over the borough of Brooklyn, and the student body reflects the rich ethnic and socioeconomic mix of the borough. The school has consistently earned the highest marks on New York City’s school rating system and has been named a “High Achieving, Gap Closing” school by New York State. Mr. Weinberg has been an educator for 25 years, including 23 years working at HSTAT. He has been an English teacher, an Assistant Principal, and for the past 9 years has been delighted to serve as the school’s principal.
Richard Lemons, formerly assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, was recently appointed vice president for program and policy at The Education Trust. He recently directed the Institute for Urban School Improvement at the University of Connecticut and was on faculty in the Department of Education Leadership, where he directed and taught within the doctoral program. He worked with the Connecticut Center for School Change and the Fairfield County Community Foundation, in collaboration with urban districts, to design and teach within the Urban School Leaders Fellowship, an initiative designed to enhance leadership capacity within urban districts. He previously was associate director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A former high school teacher, Richard has led summer programs for at-risk youth and served as a change coach for urban high schools. He received a bachelor's in political science from North Carolina State University and master's and doctoral degrees in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.
Robert Kronley is president of Kronley & Associates, an Atlanta-based consulting firm. He has been working in the area of public policy, philanthropy organizational change and education reform for over three decades. He helped create and later directed the Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy, which undertook research and developed and operated programs to promote equity in the South. He later advised the Southern Education Foundation on strategies and programs that resulted in the organization’s shift from a private foundation to a public charity and continue to shape the group’s work. Mr. Kronley advises foundations, businesses, families and governmental agencies on education, philanthropy and public policy, areas in which he has also written extensively. Mr. Kronley received the A.B. from Columbia University and the J.D. from New York University.
Robert Rothman is a Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education. Previously, he was a senior editor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, where he edited the Institute’s quarterly magazine, Voices in Urban Education form 2002 to 2009. He has also worked with Achieve, the National Research Council, and the National Center on Education and the Economy, and was a reporter and editor for Education Week. Mr. Rothman has written numerous reports and articles on a wide range of education issues, and he is the editor of City Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2007) and the author of Measuring Up: Standards, Assessments and School Reform (Jossey-Bass, 1995).
Susan Moore Johnson is the Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning at Harvard Graduate School of Education and director of the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. Susan Moore Johnson studies and teaches about teacher policy, organizational change, and administrative practice. A former high-school teacher and administrator, she has a continuing research interest in the work of teachers and the reform of schools. She has studied the leadership of superintendents, the effects of collective bargaining on schools, the use of incentive pay plans for teachers, and the school as a context for adult work. Currently, Johnson and a group of advanced doctoral students are engaged in a multiyear research study, The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, that examines how best to recruit, support, and retain a strong teaching force in the next decade. The project, which is funded by several foundations, includes studies of hiring practices, alternative certification programs, new teachers' attitudes toward careers, and new teachers' experiences with colleagues. Johnson served as academic dean of the Ed School from 1993 to 1999. She has taught in the School's summer institute programs for administrators and teachers since 1989.
Tracie Potochnik is a research associate in district redesign and leadership at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and provides research and other support for the initiative. She researches and writes for various reports and publications; assists with meeting planning; and documents and helps facilitate communications between the Institute and the work sites. Before coming to the Institute, Tracie worked as a program assistant at the Public Education Fund in Providence. Tracie received a BA in English with a correlate in women's studies from Vassar College and also completed coursework at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Warren Simmons is executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Before joining the Institute in 1998, he was executive director of the Philadelphia Education Fund, where he supported districtwide efforts to enact standards-based reform. He received a B.A. in psychology from Macalester College and a PhD in psychology from Cornell University. He serves on the boards of several national and local education organizations including the Public Education Network, the National Center on Education and the Economy, and the Rhode Island Children's Crusade.
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