Research Report: Local Middle-Secondary Education

As the Senior Data Analyst Aisha manages the evaluation of two major grants: one for ZOOM! Data Source, the Association’s student achievement data system for schools, and the other for Chartering for Success, a grant funding the strategic development of high-quality charters in underserved locations. Aisha also helps develop and lead the Association’s research program. Dr. Toney received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and her M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University where she also received her Ph.D. in Education.   She taught 6th grade Science and Social Studies at KIPP Bay View Academy in San Francisco.  Aisha also did some student teaching at a community college as part of her graduate studies.  Previously, Aisha served as the Executive Director of the East Palo Alto Stanford Academy, the Tutorial Director of the East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring Program, a site coordinator for the Educational Program for Gifted Youth (Korea), and the Coordinator for Partners for Academic Excellence at Stanford.  She served as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Fellowship Academy and currently serves on the Board of Trustees at The Urban School of San Francisco, her alma mater.

Carol has a B.A. in Education from University of Massachusetts, her M.Ed. from Northeastern University, and her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. All of Carol's teaching has been in the area of Mathematics Education. She has spent a great amount of time working in the area of professional development. For 15 years she was the director of the San Francisco Mathematics Leadership Project, one of the California Subject Matter Projects, and worked with hundreds of teachers in San Francisco and surrounding districts. Since 1993, she has been Director of the Mathematics/Education Masters Degree Project, funded by the State Eisenhower Program. This is a joint project between the Mathematics Department and the Elementary Education Department to develop a Masters Degree in Education with a Concentration in Mathematics Education for elementary and middle school teachers. Her most recent publications are a book chapter, Other Emergence of Teacher Leaders through Professional Development, a paper, "Developing Teacher-Leaders in a Maestros Degree Program in Mathematics Education," and a Special Edition of the College of Education Journal, which she co-edited. This special issue is a collection of papers based on the theses and field studies written by graduates of the Masters in Mathematics Education Program. In addition she has co-authored several books, most notably, How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science and Building Success in Mathematics.

David Stronck is a Professor in Teacher Education at California State University. He has also previously been Associate Professor at University of Victoria, and Washington State University. He received his M.S. in Biological Sciences and Ph.D. in Science Education from Oregon State University.

Before joining PACE in January 2007, David N. Plank was a Professor at Michigan State University, where he founded and directed the Education Policy Center. He was previously on the faculties at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he taught courses and conducted research in the areas of educational finance and policy. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1983. Plank is the author or editor of six books, including the forthcoming AERA Handbook on Educational Policy Research. He has published widely in a number of different fields including economics of education, history of education, and educational policy. His current interests include the role of the State in education, and the relationship between academic research and public policy. In addition to his work in the United States, Plank has extensive international experience. He has served as a consultant to international organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Ford Foundation, and also to governments in Africa and Latin America.

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education where she has taught for the past 9 years, specializing in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. In 2003, she founded SOS: Stressed-Out Students project, a research and intervention effort to help K-12 schools counter the causes of academic stress. SOS is the pre-cursor to and shapes the mission of Challenge Success. Her book, "Doing School": How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001) received the Notable Book in Education by the American School Board Journal, 2001. Dr. Pope is a three-time recipient of the Stanford University School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award. She lives in Los Altos, California with her husband and three children.

Jean Wing is a Coordinator of Research and Best Practices at Oakland Unified School District. She was previously Dissertation Fellow & Policy Editor at UC ACCORD, and Coordinator, Research & Best Practices at OUSD New School Development Group. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Urban Education from University of California, Berkeley.

Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade joined San Francisco State University in 2004 as Co-Director of the Educational Equity Initiative at the Cesar Chavez Institute, and became an Assistant Professor in the School of Education as well as in the College of Ethnic Studies, Raza Studies Department in 2004. Prior to SF State, Duncan-Andrade was a Lecturer in the School of Education and the Director of Urban Teacher Development for the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at University of California, Los Angeles in 2002. In 2001, he was Adjunct Faculty to the Sociology Department at University of San Francisco, and in 2000 a Lecturer in the School of Education at University of California, Berkeley. In addition, Dr. Duncan-Andrade has seventeen years teaching experience in public middle and high schools in the Bay Area. Dr. Duncan-Andrade is an Urban Teacher Educator Network Fellow and recently was awarded the "Scholars for the Dream" award from the National Council of the Teachers of English. He has a passion for issues surrounding equity and social justice, and has further studied and researched these issues when he earned an MA in Language, Literacy and Culture in Education from UC Berkeley as well as a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies in Education with Distinction Honors in Oral Exams from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Yang joined the Ethnic Studies Department in Fall 2006. He received his Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies in Education from the University of California Berkeley in 2004. Prior to his appointment at UCSD, he was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. His dissertation, entitled “Taking Over: The Struggle to Transform an Urban School System,” earned several distinctions, including Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association and Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Dr. Yang brings an applied research approach to the Ethnic Studies Department, particularly for his work in urban schools. His current research focuses on the role of youth popular culture and pedagogy in the emergence of social movements. He draws from a range of sociological, ethnographic and linguistic anthropological methods to analyze shifts in individual and collective consciousness about self, society, nation and world, especially for communities living in the context of modern U.S. ghettos. Dr. Yang’s work blurs the line between scholarship and community work, as evidenced by his work with youth sociologists, and his active participation in non-profit organizations such as the Avenues Project. An accomplished educator, Dr. Yang has taught high school in Oakland, California for nearly 15 years and is the Co-founder of East Oakland Community High School.

Keri Gleneian is the Associate Professor in Education at Humboldt State University.

Larry Horvath is an assistant professor of secondary education. He has a Ph.D. in science education from the University of California, Davis. His most recent position is an instructor/associate supervisor in science teacher education at the University of California, Davis. His research interests are pre-service teachers using inquiry-based science during performance assessments for California teachers evaluations.

Lynda Tredway is the coordinator of the Principal Leadership Institute. Her interests are in urban education, particularly in analyzing discourse patterns in classrooms to promote equity, and in ensuring that educational institutions are more responsive to students of color. Before coming to Berkeley she spent almost 30 years working with urban schools in Washington, D.C. She was formerly on the faculty of George Washington University, where she was project director for the Urban Initiative, a school-university partnership for preparing pre-service teachers for urban schools. She has also served as a program director, lead teacher, and teacher in the Washington, D.C., public schools. Her publications include A Primer for Social Justice Educators(in press); Community Mapping: A Curricular Guide for Teacher Educators, from the Contextual Teaching and Learning Project of USDOE (with M. Freund, 2002); "The Teacher as Moral and Intellectual Guide," in Creating a Community of Learners: Using the Teacher as Facilitator Model, edited by K. G. Elam et al. (2000); and "The Art of Juggling: Preparing Pre-service Teachers for Urban Teaching," in the Journal of Negro Education(1999). She received her M.A. from Catholic University in Secondary Education.

Lynn Fox has a professor at San Francisco State University since 1989. She has worked in all Secondary Education Programs: regular, employeed teachers, CLAD and intern training programs. Along with teaching classes in many subject areas, she has run a student teaching program/seminar in schools located throughout the Bay Area.

Mark Philips is the Professor of Secondary Education and Director of School Relations and Educational Outreach at San Francisco State University. His area of expertise is alternative and charter schools, reaching and teaching at-risk adolescents, parental involvement in schools, and teacher emotional intelligence. He received his Ed.D. from University of Massachusetts.

Mary Kiely is a Ph.D. research biologist and former private foundation officer with Carnegie Corporation of New York. Her particular interests are science education, education reform, and improving the teaching and learning process. Upon joining Stanford University in 1990 as a senior academic program officer, Kiely directed a large‐scale curriculum and teacher development effort with Stanford’s Program in Human Biology, funded by the National Science Foundation. The project produced a modular, inquiry‐based life science curriculum for the middle grades 6‐8. Later, as Executive Director of the Wallenberg Global Learning Network (WGLN) at Stanford University, Kiely managed the WGLN competitive faculty grants program, comprised of research partnerships between faculty at Swedish universities and Stanford University, aimed at improving the teaching and learning process though innovative uses of information and communication technologies. In the fall of 2007, Kiely became the Director of Stanford’s Initiative on Improving K12 Education, part of the Stanford Challenge, which is aimed broadly at building a university that will better serve the world through the quality, impact, and vision of its research, and through a new generation of leaders that it will produce. Kiely manages the day‐to‐day operations of the K‐12 Initiative, develops and oversees the competitive faculty grants program, and helps to build new faculty partnerships across the Stanford campus. Kiely currently serves on the Board of Directors of NatureBridge as its Vice Chair for Education. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of BSCS, a non‐profit education organization that develops science education curricula, provides professional development programs for teachers and school districts, and conducts research and evaluation studies. Kiely received her BS and MA degrees in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from the Department of Zoology at the University of Washington. She completed a two‐year post‐doctoral fellowship in science and health policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, before joining Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1984.

Melissa C. Gilbert grew up in Austin, Texas and earned her bachelor's degree from Wellesley College before moving to the Bay Area in 1995 to pursue a career in education. She earned a master's degree in education at Stanford University and then a secondary mathematics teaching credential at Mills College prior to teaching mathematics in the San Lorenzo and Mountain View School Districts. She primarily taught mathematics, both in self-contained and single-subject settings, to diverse groups of students (e.g., English Learners, special-needs) in heterogeneous classrooms. In 2001 she left the Bay Area to enter the doctoral program at the University of Michigan. While pursuing her doctorate, she taught mathematics methods under the supervision of Deborah Ball as well as educational psychology for prospective secondary mathematics teachers. Her research experiences included data-driven professional development related to cognitively demanding mathematics learning environments (with Ed Silver and Valerie Mills) and to supporting students' motivation to learn mathematics (with Stuart Karabenick and Marty Maehr). Her desire to engage all of her students in mathematical thinking inspired her to focus on the relationship between students' motivation and their mathematical proficiency in her doctoral research, which she completed in 2007. Other recent research examines how teacher beliefs and practices relate to student motivation and achievement in mathematics. At Santa Clara University, Melissa primarily teaches the mathematics methods courses for elementary and secondary credential students.

Nancy Kamprath Bier, Ph.D., has more than 10 years of experience in research and evaluation of programs and policies related to child and youth development that take into account the interrelated contexts of families, peers, schools, and communities. Her expertise includes conducting research on child and adolescent development, educational reform, and out-of-school learning; coordinating process and outcome evaluations; using qualitative and quantitative research methods; and working with organizations and community members to design evaluations that meet their needs. Dr. Bier has considerable experience not only in designing evaluations and collecting data, but also in analyzing and interpreting data for a wide range of audiences. Her work has included providing technical assistance on data collection processes and on the use of evaluation for program improvement, and writing articles and reports for both academic and nonacademic audiences. Since joining SRI, Dr. Bier has served as a researcher for multiple projects focused on educational reform, including an evaluation of a high school reform program for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (National School District and Network Grants program) and a study of the status of the teaching profession in California (Teaching and California's Future). She also has served as project leader for both large-scale and smaller-scale evaluation studies, including evaluations of out-of-school learning programs and other programs supporting child and youth development. Her focus is on three areas: high school reform, teacher professional development, and out-of-school learning opportunities for children and youth. Dr. Bier received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.