Diana Autin
Executive Co-Director
Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN)
Diana Autin is the Executive Co-Director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), NJ’s Parent Training and Information Center. She also co-directs NE-PACT, the Region 1 Parent Technical Assistance Center, providing technical assistance and capacity-building to the federally-funded parent training and information centers and community parent resource centers in the Northeast United States.
Contact Information:
Diana Autin
Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of NJ
35 Halsey Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Diana.autin@spannj.org
www.spannj.org
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Vito J. Borrello
Executive Director
National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement
Vanessa Coleman, Ph.D.
Principal Consultant
American Institutes for Research (AIR)
Vanessa Coleman is a principal technical assistance consultant at AIR. Dr. Coleman currently manages AIR’s investment project, Say Yes to Education, in both Syracuse and Buffalo, New York. With a particular focus on multi-stakeholder education reform initiatives, Dr. Coleman also serves on a wide variety of hands-on technical assistance district-wide projects.
Prior to AIR, Dr. Coleman owned and operated a consulting firm focused on facilitating leadership through effective and sustainable change management. Emphasizing innovation, scaling change, and capacity building for education-focused entities, she has worked with a range of clients, from local government entities to large-scale non-for profits. She also has extensive not-for-profit leadership experience and served as executive director of a national comprehensive school reform think tank and network, the Coalition of Essential Schools. Prior to that, Dr. Coleman served as Executive Director of Summerbridge National (now the Breakthrough Collaborative), an international youth development program focused on academic achievement.
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Peter Cookson, Ph.D.
Principal Researcher and Director
American Institutes for Research (AIR)
Peter W. Cookson, Jr. co-leads LPI’s Equitable Resources and Access team and provides leadership for several equity initiatives. In addition to teaching sociology at Georgetown University, he co-leads the National Poverty Study, a joint research project of Stanford University, John Hopkins University, and the American Institutes for Research. Cookson began his career as a case worker in New York City and as a teacher in rural Massachusetts. Most recently, he was Managing Director of the think tank Education Sector and founded The Equity Project at the American Institutes for Research. He is the author of 16 books and numerous articles on education and inequality, social stratification, school choice, and 21st century education.
Cookson has a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Education from New York University, an M.A. in American History from New York University, an M.A.R. from the Yale Divinity School, and a B.A. in History from New York University.
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Lynn M. Cromley
Director
Center for Schools and Communities
Lynn Cromley serves as the Director of the Center for Safe Schools, a statewide clearinghouse on school safety and youth violence prevention. The Pennsylvania Center for Safe Schools is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as one of 17 state school safety centers in the nation. The Center provides professional development, technical assistance, grant administration, resources and dissemination of research and best practices to schools and other youth serving organizations to promote positive, safe learning environments for students and staff.
Ms. Cromley has over 30 years of policy and administrative experience in the field of education, with extensive experience in school safety and youth violence prevention, positive youth development, and family support and parental engagement.
Under Ms. Cromley’s direction, the Center has implemented large scale initiatives, established multiple statewide training networks and conducted evaluation and research in conjunction with university partners in an effort to improve the body of knowledge on effective policies and strategies.
Ms. Cromley has served as an expert presenter at state and national conferences and training events on a myriad of educational issues. She currently and previously has served as a member or chair of task force efforts and boards including, Pennsylvania Safe Schools Advisory Committee (Chair), PA Truancy Task Force, the Attorney General’s Task Force on School Violence, (Chair of subcommittee), Governor’s Partnership for Safe Children, and the PA Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, (subcommittee member).
Ms. Cromley, a life-long educator, received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education with a concentration in Education of the Hearing Impaired from Bloomsburg University. She received her Master’s Degree in Education Administration from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Education Policy and Leadership, also at Temple University.
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Greg J. Duncan, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor
School of Education, University of California, Irvine
Greg J. Duncan is a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine. An economist, Duncan’s research focuses on neighborhood effects on the development of children and adolescents and other issues involving welfare reform, income distribution, and its consequences for children and adults.
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Kathryn Edin, Ph.D.
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor
Department of Sociology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
I received my Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 1991 and I have also taught at Rutgers University, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, Harvard University as a Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School and chair of their Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy. I am a Trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and on the Department of Health and Human Services advisory committee for the poverty research centers at Michigan, Wisconsin, and Stanford. I am a founding member of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on Housing and Families with Young Children and a past member of the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy. In 2014 I became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
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Seth A. Gordon-Lipkin
Education Director
Washington, D.C. Regional Office, Anti-Defamation League
Paul Gorski, Ph.D.
Founder
EdChange, and Assistant Professor of Integrative Studies, George Mason University
Paul C. Gorski is an associate professor of Integrative Studies in George Mason University's School of Integrative Studies, where he teaches courses in the Education and Social Justice concentrations. He recently led the design and development of the new Social Justice and Human Rights undergraduate and graduate programs. Paul is a Senior Research Fellow for the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being and is serving his third term on the board of the International Association for Intercultural Education. He has been an active consultant, presenter, and trainer for nearly twenty-five years, conducting workshops and providing guidance for schools and community organizations committed to bolstering individual and institutional equity efforts. He created and continues to manage the Multicultural Pavilion, an award winning Web site focused on critical multicultural education. He has published more than 60 articles and ten books, focusing most recently on topics like poverty and educational opportunity, racial equity, and activist resiliency. He lives in Virginia with his cat, Buster.
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Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D.
Director
Assessment and Evaluation, Illinois Resource Center, and Lead Developer, World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium
Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is Co-founder and Lead Developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin- Madison, having also served as Director, Assessment and Evaluation, for the Illinois Resource Center. She has contributed to the crafting of language proficiency/ development standards for American Samoa, Guam, TESOL, and WIDA and has designed assessments, curricular frameworks, and instructional assessment systems for language learners. Her professional experiences span from being an inner city language teacher to working with thousands of educators across states, school districts, publishing companies, governments, universities, and educational organizations.
Highlights of Margo’s career include being a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Chile and being appointed to the U.S. Department of Education’s Inaugural National Technical Advisory Council. In 2016 Margo was honored by TESOL International Association's 50@50 “as an individual who has made a significant contribution to the TESOL profession within the past 50 years.” She has had opportunities to travel extensively and has presented in American Samoa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Denmark, Finland, Guam, Italy, Jakarta, Mexico, Panama, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom as well as close to home across the United States.
Margo's publications include over 70 articles, technical reports, monographs, chapters, and encyclopedia entries. Additionally she has authored, co-authored, and co-edited 11 books this past decade: Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity (2nd Ed., 2016), Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts (with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2014), a foundational book for the series Promoting Content and Language Learning (a compendium of three mathematics and three English language arts volumes co-edited with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2014, 2013), Common Language Assessment for English Learners (2012), Paper to Practice: Using the TESOL's English Language Proficiency Standards in PreK-12 Classrooms (with A. Katz & G. Ernst-Slavit, 2009); and Assessment and Accountability in Language Education Programs: A Guide for Administrators and Teachers (with D. Nguyen, 2007).
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David B. Grusky, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Center on Poverty and Inequality, and Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
David B. Grusky is Barbara Kimball Browning Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Sociology, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, and coeditor of Pathways Magazine. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, corecipient of the 2004 Max Weber Award, founder of the Cornell University Center for the Study of Inequality, and a former Presidential Young Investigator. His recent books are Inequality in the 21st Century(with Jasmine Hill, 2017), Social Stratification(with Kate Weisshaar, 2014), Occupy the Future (with Douglas McAdam, Robert Reich, and Debra Satz, 2012), The New Gilded Age (with Tamar Kricheli-Katz, 2011), and The Great Recession (with Bruce Western and Chris Wimer, 2011).
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Pamela Higgins-Harris
Senior Consultant
MAEC
Pamela has over 43 years of experience in public education as an education equity leader. The core values reflected in her practice center on the academic, emotional, and socio-cultural interests of diverse learners and marginalized populations, K-adult. Her commitment is demonstrated most in her capacity building work with educators who work in service to these populations. Her years of service include leadership roles held in school improvement and professional development; mediation/conflict analysis and resolution; facilitation of district-wide transformation and change; oversight of district-wide equity assurance compliance and programs; graduate level instruction on topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice. In her current role as CEE’s Senior Consultant, program work focuses on differentiated approaches to advancing culturally responsive and sustaining, systemic leadership through the lens of educational equity. Pamela holds a B.A. in French and an M.Ed. in Special Education from the American University; and an Advanced Graduate Specialist Certification (A.G.S.) in Professional Development & Urban Education from University of Maryland, College Park.
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Mary Howlett-Brandon, Ph.D.
Equity and Multicultural Specialist
Maryland State Department of Education
Okhee Lee, Ph.D.
Professor of Childhood Education
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University
Okhee Lee’s research areas include science education, language and culture, and teacher education. Her current research involves the scale-up of a model of a curricular and teacher professional development intervention to promote science learning and language development of English language learners. She was a member of the writing team to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and leader for the NGSS Diversity and Equity Team through Achieve Inc. She is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Understanding Language Initiative at Stanford University. She is a 2009 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and received the Distinguished Career Award from the AERA Scholars of Color in Education in 2003. She was awarded a 1993-95 National Academy of Education Spencer Post-doctoral Fellowship. She has directed research and teacher enhancement projects funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, Spencer Foundation, and other sources. She received her doctorate from Michigan State University in 1989, and taught in the School of Education at the University of Miami prior to coming to Steinhardt.
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Wes Moore
Founder and CEO
BridgeEdu
Wes Moore is a decorated Army combat veteran, youth advocate and founder and CEO of BridgeEdU, a national initiative focusing on addressing the college completion and career placement crisis by reinventing the Freshman Year of college.
He is also the author of two instant New York Times bestselling books, The Other Wes Moore, a story of the importance of individual decisions as well as community support, and The Work, which chronicles Wes’s journey to discover meaning in his work and how he found that meaning in service. Most recently he released This Way Home, a young adult novel about the choices we make and the friendships we keep.
Wes graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge Military College and in 1998 received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Johns Hopkins University. He completed an MLitt in International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004.
Upon graduation, Wes served as a paratrooper and Captain in the United States Army, participating in a combat tour of duty in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Wes has been featured by USA Today, People Magazine, “Meet the Press,” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, “The View,” MSNBC, and NPR, among many others. He is also the host of “Beyond Belief” on the Oprah Winfrey Network and Executive Producer and host of“Coming Back with Wes Moore” on PBS.
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Ernest Morrell
Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) and Professor of English Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
ERNEST MORRELL is the Macy Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also a Class of 2014 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a Past-President of the National Council of Teachers of English. Dr. Morrell’s research focuses on drawing upon youth’s interest in popular culture and participatory media technologies to promote academic and critical literacy development, civic engagement and college access. He is also recognized nationally for developing powerful models of teaching and learning in classrooms and non-school environments and for engaging districts, schools, and communities in the project of educational reform. Professor Morrell has written more than 70 articles that have appeared in journals such as Teachers College Record, the Journal of Teacher Education, Reading Research Quarterly, English Education, the English Journal, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Action in Teacher Education, and the Annual Yearbook of the National Reading Conference. He has written numerous book chapters and eight published books including: New Directions in Teaching English, Doing Youth Participatory Action Research, Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools (Teachers College Press), The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools and Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation. He is a sought after speaker by universities, school districts, professional organizations, and private foundations. Morrell has also received several commendations for his teaching including being recognized five times by Who’s Who Among America’s High School teachers and receiving UCLA’s Department of Education’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Morrell received his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of California, Berkeley and was the recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation award.
Supervisors: Jabari Mahiri, Pedro Noguera, and Jeannie Oakes
Phone: (212) 678-3159 (ph)
Address: Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th St., Box #75
New York, NY 10027
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Susan Mundry
Director
WestEd
Susan Mundry is Director of the Learning Innovations program and Subcontract Director of the Regional Educational Laboratory-Northeast & Islands and the Northeast Regional Comprehensive Center.
She also leads evaluations of Intel Mathematics and of a Math-Science Partnership at Penn State University.
For over a decade, Mundry directed the National Academy for Science and Mathematics Education Leadership.
She also consulted on the design and implementation of leadership academies for the states of Texas, Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Illinois and in Puerto Rico. Based on this work, she coauthored the award-winning Leading Every Day: 124 Actions for Effective Leadership, now in its third edition. The book was named a Learning Forward Book of the Year.
As Senior Research Associate for the National Institute for Science Education, Mundry coauthored the best-selling book, Designing Effective Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics, as well as policy briefs and professional development guides.
She also coauthored the toolkit, Teachers as Learners, a videotape collection of 18 professional development programs, and was an author of The Data Coach's Guide to Improving Learning for All Students.
Prior to joining WestEd, Mundry was Associate Director at The NETWORK, Inc., a research and development organization focused on school improvement. There, she managed the work of the National Center for Improving Science Education and the Center for Effective Communication, and developed Making Change for School Improvement, a simulation game that enhances leaders' ability to lead change efforts.
Mundry received a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an EdM from Boston University.
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Michelle Nutter
Project Manager
Center for Safe Schools
Michelle Nutter, a Pennsylvania-certified teacher, is the Safe and Supportive Schools Manager for the Center for Safe Schools. Prior to joining the Safe Schools Team in 2005, she was a civil rights investigator with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. During her 10 years with that office, she worked extensively with schools, communities and law enforcement departments to raise awareness and provide effective interventions related to organized hate groups and hate crimes, school-based harassment, bullying prevention, racial tension, prejudice reduction, diversity, gangs, terrorism awareness and First Amendment issues. In addition to her other duties with the Center for Safe Schools, Nutter is the Pennsylvania coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center, one of 10 regional equity assistance center funded by the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. She is a certified Olweus Bullying Prevention Program trainer and provides bullying prevention training and consultation services to Pennsylvania schools and communities. Nutter is also a certified Partners Against Hate trainer and assists schools in the prevention of and effective response to bias-related tension incidents. Additionally, she is a certified Terrorism Awareness and Prevention trainer.
Nutter received her bachelor’s degree in English education from Messiah College and holds over fifty FEMA certificates relative to emergency preparedness and disaster response. She holds a psychological first aid certificate from the American Red Cross. She is a graduate of the National Institute Against Hate Crimes and Terrorism, a collaborative training effort between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. She also graduated from the Anti-Defamation League's Advanced Training School course on Extremist and Terrorist Threats and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Citizen’s Academy.
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Bryan Sebobo
Former Deputy Project Director
Third Party Fiduciary, Government of US the Virgin Islands
Mr. Sebobo has more than 14 years of extensive experience in the public education sector, from State Education Agency (SEA) program and fiscal management to classroom teaching.
While in the Government of the District of Columbia, he managed the annual fiscal administration and monitoring of $20 million Elementary and Secondary Act federal grants and state activities of over 60 DC public and public charter LEAs with over 200 schools. As a state Program Manager, he overhauled, implemented, and lead DC’s Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students program. Under his leadership, the English Language Learners subgroup achieved the biggest academic gains in 2013 high-stake state assessment.
In his past role as the TPFA Deputy Project Director of the Government of the US Virgin Islands (GVI), a USED designated “high-risk” state entity, he supervised three department teams that provide technical and consultative support to government officials and executive management teams, including the development and implementation of GVI federal program capacity-building and transition curricula, professional learning communities, and program accountability systems. Under his leadership, the GVI Department of Education has attained its 3rd consecutive years of clean A-133 audit (FY14). This accomplishment paved way to GVI Executive Teams to have more flexibility in investing on high-stake approaches to address the needs of at-risk students and their parents.
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Gullermo Solano-Flores, Ph.D.
Professor of Education
Educational Measurement and Assessment, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Dr. Guillermo Solano-Flores is Professor of Education at the Stanford University Graduate
School of Education. He specializes in educational assessment and the linguistic and cultural
issues that are relevant to both international test comparisons and the testing of cultural and
linguistic minorities. His research is based on the use of multidisciplinary approaches that use
psychometrics, sociolinguistics, semiotics, and cognitive science in combination. He has
conducted research on the development, translation, localization, and review of science and
mathematics tests. He has been principal investigator in several National Science Foundationfunded
projects that have examined the intersection of psychometrics, semiotics, and linguistics
in testing. He is the author of the theory of test translation error, which addresses testing across
cultures and languages. Also, he has investigated the use of generalizability theory—a
psychometric theory of measurement error—in the testing of English language learners and
indigenous populations. He has advised Latin American countries on the development of
national assessment systems. Also, he has been the advisor to countries in Latin America, Asia,
Europe, Middle East, and Northern Africa on the adaptation and translation of performance tasks
into multiple languages. Current research projects examine academic language and testing,
formative assessment practices for culturally diverse science classrooms, and the design and use
of illustrations in international test comparisons and in the testing of English language learners. Read More
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Dr. Zollie Stevenson, Jr., Ph.D.
Former Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs
Philander Smith College
Dr. Zollie Stevenson, Jr. is the Director of Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs (SASA), formerly Compensatory Education Programs, in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. The SASA programs office is responsible for the administration of over $15 billion annually in Title I and Title III formula grants to promote improved achievement in schools that serve low-income children and English language learners.
The Title I, Part A program administers over $14 billion annually in formula grants to State education agencies and eligible school districts to promote improved achievement in schools that serve low-income children. The Title III State Formula Grant Program makes two types of subgrants to LEAs: subgrants based on a formula reflecting the number of LEP students in the LEA, and subgrants based on significant increases in the percentage or number of immigrant children and youth in the LEA.
In addition to the Title I, Part A and Title III State consolidated grant programs, as director of SASA, Zollie is responsible for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth Program, Enhanced Assessment Grants, and Programs for Children and Youth Who are Neglected and Delinquent, or At-Risk.
Before his current appointment, Zollie served as Deputy Director of SASA and has also served as SASA’s group leader for standards, assessment and accountability. Before joining SASA, he was the director of research, assessment and evaluation in the Baltimore City (MD) Public Schools. Prior to Baltimore, he served as the research director for the District of Columbia (DCPS) and Charlotte/Mecklenburg public school systems as well as an evaluation research officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He began his career as a regional coordinator for research, testing and accreditation for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
In addition to serving as research director in DCPS, Zollie served as chief of staff for the Center for Systemic Educational Change, which focused on student efficacy, curriculum and instruction, school reform initiatives and professional development and training. For three years he was the District of Columbia’s (DC’s) co-state team leader for Title I with the U.S. Department of Education and held an additional role as deputy director for operations for the National Science Foundation Urban Systemic Initiative grant awarded to DC. His final role in DC was as executive director for educational support services which included managing the school district’s research and planning, school attendance, homeless education, athletics, homebound education program, home schooling liaison, HIV/AIDS education, and comprehensive school health services.
He has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, East Carolina University, the George Washington University, the University of Maryland and Bowie State University where he has taught applied research methods, tests and measurements, development of theoretical frameworks and supervised the writing of doctoral dissertations.
He has published several articles in refereed journals, has authored over 50 evaluation studies and has been active in educational and research focused professional organizations. Zollie earned the BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, a MS Ed. degree from North Carolina A&T State University (Greensboro), and the Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Lisa Tabaku
Principal Researcher
American Institutes for Research (AIR)
Lisa Tabaku is a principal researcher at AIR, where she is responsible for overseeing and providing professional development and technical assistance to states and districts to improve educational outcomes for English learners. Tabaku has 30 years of experience in helping educate students of diverse language and cultural backgrounds. She served as director of PK–12 ELL Professional Development at the Center for Applied Linguistics and spent numerous years in a variety of roles in the District of Columbia Public Schools. These roles included director of Civil Rights and Multicultural Affairs, executive director of the Office of Bilingual Education, assistant principal of a Spanish-English, dual-language elementary school, professional developer, grant writer, curriculum writer, federal grants coordinator, and bilingual and English as a second language teacher. Tabaku’s direct teaching experience of linguistically and culturally diverse students spans grades PK–12.
Tabaku has served as an adjunct professor at American University, teaching reading and writing strategies to newly hired teachers of ELLs. Her expertise includes experience with the following as viewed from the perspective of the needs of English learner students: teaching to college and career readiness standards, implementing culturally responsive response to intervention strategies, the responsive classroom, readers’ and writers’ workshops, interdisciplinary and thematic project-based learning, second-language-teaching methodologies, multicultural education, and effective literacy instruction.
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