Help us put a great teacher in every classroom

JOIN US

Sir Michael Barber recently joined Pearson in the newly created position of Chief Education Advisor. Formerly a Partner at McKinsey and Company leading its global education practice, Michael has been working on major challenges of performance, organization and reform in government and the public services, especially education, in the USA, UK and other countries. From 2001-2005 he was the Founder and first Head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit where he was responsible for the oversight of implementation of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair's priority programs including education among others. From 1997-2001, Michael was Chief Adviser to the UK Secretary of State for Education on School Standards, responsible for the implementation of the government's school reform program. Prior to joining government Michael Barber was a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is the author of Instruction to Deliver (recently published) and numerous other books and articles.

Tony Bennett is the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, a position he has held since January 2009. He was most recently superintendent of Great Clark County Schools and, before that, worked with the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools Corporation. During his first year in the state office, he enforced a law requiring that Indiana students receive 180 days of instruction each school year and created the Graduation Rate Performance Program, which rewards principals and educators who produce increased graduation rates. His goals include establishing a statewide culture of academic excellence in which at least 90 percent of students pass the math and language-arts sections of the state's standardized tests and 25 percent of high school graduates score at least a 3 on one AP exam. Dr. Bennett has spent more than 20 years in the field of education in Indiana, serving as a teacher, coach and administrator. He received his Ed.D. and Indiana superintendent's license from Spalding University.

David Chard is dean of the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. He was a public school teacher in California and a Peace Corps educator in Africa. He also served on the faculties of Boston University and the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to arriving at SMU, Dr. Chard was associate dean for curriculum and academic programs in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. He specializes in reading and math strategies for the early grades, special education and instructional methods for students with disabilities. He has published more than 30 research articles and co-authored 12 books. A principal investigator for several federal research projects in reading and math curricula, Dr. Chard is also a member of the International Academy for Research on Learning Disabilities and a past president of the Division for Research at the Council for Exceptional Children. He holds a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Oregon.

Edward Crowe is a senior advisor for Higher Education Programs at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and for the Teaching Fellows Program at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Dr. Crowe has also provided consulting services on teacher quality and K-16 policy issues to several other organizations, including the State Higher Education Executive Officers and the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. He was the first director of the Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Program for the U.S. Department of Education, which awarded more than 90 competitive grants to states and to partnerships of universities and high-needs schools to improve the quality of teacher preparation policy and practice. Dr. Crowe is co-editor (with Dr. Rena Subotnik) of the forthcoming book series Levers of Change in Education, and recently published a chapter on "Teaching as a Profession" in the 2008 Handbook of Research in Teacher Education. He is a graduate of Boston College and holds master's and doctoral degrees in political science from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Virginia Edwards is president of Editorial Projects in Education, Inc. (EPE), and chief editor of Education Week and edweek.org. The trade paper is read by more than 260,000 people, the website visited by hundreds of thousands monthly. As president, Ms. Edwards also supervises the publication of the reports Quality Counts and Technology Counts, develops new research- and news-related products and raises funds for various EPE endeavors. A frequent speaker on education policy issues, she serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Center on Education Policy, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the Student Press Law Center and the Center for Teaching Quality. Before joining EPE, Ms. Edwards worked for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and, for nearly a decade, was an editor and reporter at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.

Deborah Gist has been Rhode Island's education commissioner since July 2009. Previously, she was the first State Superintendent of Education in the District of Columbia, where she spearheaded the creation of new educator-certification polices for teachers and school administrators and enacted standards for teacher-preparation programs to improve quality, expand opportunity and encourage innovation. She also developed new policies for health and physical education, world languages, arts education and early-childhood learning.

Early in her career, Ms. Gist was an elementary school teacher in Forth Worth, Texas, and Tampa, Florida, where she won "teacher of the year" awards. She has also served as senior policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, as marketing and development director of the Discovery Creek Children's Museum and as executive director of the mayor's office on volunteerism in Washington, D.C. She earned a master's degree in public administration from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Dan Goldhaber is the Director of the Center for Education Data & Research (CEDR) and a Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. He is the co-editor of Education Finance and Policy, and a member of the Washington State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Goldhaber previously served as an elected member of the Alexandria City School Board from 1997-2002, and as an Associate Editor of Economics of Education Review.

Much of Dr. Goldhaber's work is centered on teacher quality and the teacher labor market with a focus on the influence of human capital policies on the quality of the teacher workforce. He has published a number of studies exploring issues such as the stability and validity of teacher effectiveness estimates, the relationship between teacher characteristics and quality, and the composition and distribution of teachers in the workforce. Goldhaber holds degrees from the University of Vermont (BA, Economics) and Cornell University (MS and PhD, Labor Economics).

In March 2013, James Guthrie was appointed Superintendent for Nevada Public Schools, prior to which he was a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University. Before joining SMU, he was the chair of and a professor in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. He has also served as chairman of the board at Management Analysis & Planning (a consulting firm for education policy) and taught in the education departments of the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. At SMU, Dr. Guthrie will continue his research on effective teaching and the impact of teacher incentives on student performance. He has authored or co-authored 20 books and more than 200 professional and academic articles. He has served as consultant to numerous nations, states, and organizations, and was recently inducted into the American Educational Research Association. He received a Ph.D. in educational administration from Stanford University.

Joseph A. Hawkins is a Senior Study Director at Westat in Rockville, Maryland. Prior to his Westat employment, Mr. Hawkins was an evaluation specialist in the Department of Educational Accountability at the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, where he managed school-based research and evaluation studies. During his 19-year career with the school district, his research covered a wide variety of topics, such as student discipline, curricula, teacher training and induction, graduate follow-ups, technology, and school reform. Mr. Hawkins was also an elementary school teacher in the Peace Corps, and a preschool teacher and community youth organizer at a Washington, DC, settlement house. He has also taught developmental reading at both Howard University and Prince George's Community College (Maryland).

His publications include newspaper columns, book chapters, and journal articles on equity, racism, and intolerance. "Teaching Tools", a column written by Mr. Hawkins for Teaching Tolerance Magazine and published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, won the 1994 EdPress Association of America Distinguished Achievement Award. Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors of the Montgomery County Education Association (an affiliate of the National Education Association), and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of TransCen, Inc., a national nonprofit organization that helps adults with disabilities find and maintain meaningful employment.

Kati Haycock, one of the nation's leading child advocates in the field of education, currently serves as president of The Education Trust. Established in 1992, the Trust advocates for young people, especially those who are poor or members of minority groups, by providing hands-on assistance to urban school districts and universities working together to improve student achievement, kindergarten through college. Before arriving at The Education Trust, Ms. Haycock served as executive vice president of the Children's Defense Fund, the nation's largest child-advocacy organization. A native Californian, she founded and served as president of The Achievement Council, a statewide organization that provides assistance to teachers and principals in predominantly minority schools. Previously, Ms. Haycock served as director of the Outreach and Student Affirmative Action programs for the nine-campus University of California system.

Edward J. Kame'enui is Dean-Knight Professor and director of both the Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement and the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon's College of Education. He is a native Hawaiian who attributes his scholarly interests in reading, writing systems and language development to his experience growing up speaking "pidgin English" and communicating, albeit haphazardly, with his deaf mother and twin brother. Dr. Kame'enui served as the nation's first Commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research in the Institute of Education Sciences, the research and statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

He has co-authored 16 college textbooks on teaching reading, curriculum design, vocabulary instruction, higher order thinking and classroom management. He has also authored more than 150 publications on a range of topics, including learning disabilities, early-reading intervention and vocabulary instruction and development. Between 1990 and 2010, Dr. Kame'enui and his colleagues at the Center on Teaching and Learning were awarded more than $40 million in federal, state and private research and training funds, enabling them to direct and implement several national and state initiatives.

Barry Kaufman has been working in education for more than 40 years, most recently as Director of School Assistance and Intervention at the Alameda County Office of Education in California where he led school-improvement efforts. He began his career as a science and math teacher in New York City Public Schools, and has been a professor and/or dean at various institutions of higher learning, including Dominican University of California, Washington University, the University of Hartford and the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Kaufman also served as deputy director of the San Francisco Education Fund for three years. He has served on the California Council for the Education of Teachers and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. He is also an accomplished author recognized by his peers for a number of articles and reviews.

Dr. Kaufman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Hunter College, City University of New York. He completed his post-graduate work and earned his doctorate degree at the University of Massachusetts.

Thomas Lasley is executive director of EDvention, a collaborative dedicated to increasing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent in the greater Dayton, Ohio, region. He was most recently dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Dayton. He has published more than 70 articles in professional journals and has authored or co-authored 11 books, including Teaching Peace and Strategies for Teaching in a Diverse Society. Dr. Lasley has served on a variety of regional and state education commissions and boards, including the Governor's Commission on Teaching Success and the Ohio Board of Regents' Planning and Accountability Committee. He co-founded the Dayton Early College Academy, a unique educational partnership between the University of Dayton and the Dayton Public Schools, and is co-chair of the Teacher Quality Partnership. Dr. Lasley received his Ph.D. in education from Ohio State University.

Doug Lemov is the managing director of True North Public Schools, a network of the Uncommon Schools organization. He is also the founder and former president of School Performance, an Albany, New York-based nonprofit that provides diagnostic assessments, performance data analysis and academic consulting to high-performing charter schools. He is a founder and former principal of the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter School in Boston, regarded as one of the highest performing urban charter schools in the country.

After leaving Pacific Rim, he served as Vice President for Accountability at the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, where he designed and implemented a rigorous school-accountability system. He has since served as a consultant to such organizations as KIPP, New Leaders for New Schools and Building Excellent Schools. Mr. Lemov is a trustee of the New York Charter Schools Association and of KIPP Tech Valley Charter School. He is the author of the nationally recognized book Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. He has a B.A. from Hamilton College, an M.A. from Indiana University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Susanna Loeb is a professor of education at Stanford University, where she serves as both the director of the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice and co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education. Her focus is on the economics of education and the relationship between schools and federal, state and local policies. She also conducts research on teacher policy, school finance and school leadership, specifically on how teachers' preferences affect the distribution of teaching quality across schools and how the structure of state finance systems affects the distribution of funds to districts. Dr. Loeb is president of the American Education Finance Association and a fellow of both the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Stanford Institute for Economic Research. Prior to arriving at Stanford, she taught economics at the University of California, Davis. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

Mark Schug is professor emeritus in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also president of Mark Schug Consulting, for which he speaks and writes about economic education, market-based reforms and urban education issues. He offers advice on how to develop and implement curricula in economic and financial education, especially at the high school level. Dr. Schug taught middle and high school social studies before joining the faculties at the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin. He was an editor of The Senior Economist for the National Council on Economic Education from 1986 to 1996 and a senior fellow with the National Council on Economic Education from 2002 to 2005. He received his Ph.D. in education from the University of Minnesota.

Ralph Tabberer is currently Chief of Schools at GEMS Education, a Dubai-based group that operates high-quality schools around the world. He was most recently Director General of Schools at the Department for Children, Schools and Families in England from 2005 to 2009. He has also been a teacher in London, a researcher with the National Foundation for Educational Research and Chief Executive of the Teacher Training Agency, where he led the drive to improve the quality of teacher preparation. Mr. Tabberer served as a senior advisor for Standards and Effectiveness in the UK Department for Education and as head of the National Foundation for Education Research. He is particularly interested in new technology and increasing student achievement. He earned his B.A. in economics, political and social science from the University of Cambridge and a postgraduate certificate in education from Brunel University.

Suzanne Wilson is a professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Before joining Michigan State, she taught both elementary social studies and education classes that spanned a wide range of disciplines and levels. She was also the first director of the Teacher Assessment Project at Stanford University. At MSU, Dr. Wilson founded the Center for the Scholarship of Teaching and often advises doctoral students. She has done extensive research and writing on professional development for teachers, education policy and teacher learning, among other topics. She advises and is on the boards of various organizations, including the Center for Proficiency in Teaching Mathematics. Dr. Wilson is the author of California Dreaming: Reforming Mathematics Education and editor of Wisdom of Practice: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Learning to Teach. She received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from Stanford University.