JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIPS IN CHILD AND FAMILY POLICY

December 2005

SPEAKER BIOS

 

Janine G. Bacquie is Director of the Division of Early Childhood Programs and Services. She has an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood/Special Education and a graduate degree in Elementary Education Administration and Supervision.  During her career, Ms. Bacquie has served as Early Childhood Supervisor, assistant principal, coordinator, and early childhood classroom teacher.  As director she advocates for high-quality early childhood standards, and helps to execute programs and policies on both a local and national level, which will work to ensure a strong start for our youngest learners.  She continues to successfully collaborate with teachers, parents, administrators, childcare providers, community organizations, research institutions, and state and federal education officials to ensure the highest possible quality standards for the care and education of all young children.  Contact at Janine_G_Bacquie@mcpsmd.org.

 

Jacqui Banaszynski holds the Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism and is on the visiting faculty of The Poynter Institute. She has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 30 years, most recently as Associate Managing Editor of the The Seattle Times, where she was in charge of special projects and staff development. She spent 18 years as a beat and enterprise reporter, then worked as a projects editor at newspapers in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. While at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, her series “AIDS in the Heartland” ~ an intimate look at the life and death of a gay farm couple ~ won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing and a national SPJ Distinguished Service Award. She was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for coverage of the Ethiopian famine, and won the national AP Sports Editors deadline writing contest with a story from the 1988 Summer Olympics.  Her work has exposed a fraudulent developer, explored the plight of Kurdish refugees in Iraq and followed a dogsled expedition across Antarctica. She has edited several award-winning projects, including work that won the 1997 ASNE Best Feature Writing Award and the 2003 Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing. In 2004, she edited a four-part investigative series on the failure of public defense that was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award and for the Selden Ring Award. That same year, a series she edited on the global economy won the prestigious Leob Award for economic journalism.  A native of a Wisconsin farm village, she is a 1974 graduate of Marquette University. She leads workshops for editors and reporters around the world, is a regular presenter at APME NewsTrain and the National Writers Workshops, has taught at API, the University of Kansas and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, and has served as a Pulitzer juror.  Contact at 573-882-4573 or banaszynskij@missouri.edu.

 

Oscar Barbarin is L. Richardson and Emily Preyer Bicentennial Distinguished Professor for Strengthening Families, School of Social Work and Senior Investigator, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center Faculty Mentor, Center for Science Development- UNC, Chapel Hill. He is currently involved in a longitudinal study of the effects of family life and publicly sponsored pre-K programs on early socio-emotional and academic development. He is also interested in the effects of early childhood intervention and the etiology of achievement and underachievement in ethnic minority children. As a Fogarty International Center Fellow, Dr. Barbarin initiated research on the effects of community violence and poverty on emotional and behavioral development of South African children. He has published a book entitled "Mandela's Children" which describes the effects of poverty, violence and family life from birth to age 5 and is involved in a longitudinal study of socio-emotional development of South African Children. His research on African American children and families has explored the effects of social risks on mental health. One aspect of his work is the development of screening tools for the early detection of factors that interfere with the academic and psychological adjustment of children. He weds research with concern about its application. He has collaborated with organizations such as Head Start in Detroit and Boysville of Michigan to improve their services to African American and Latino communities. Contact at (919) 962-6405 or barbarin@unc.edu.

 

W. Steve Barnett is a professor of Education Economics and Public Policy and director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. His work includes research on early education and child care policy, the educational opportunities and experiences of young children in low-income urban areas, the effects of preschool programs on children's learning and development, and benefit-cost analysis of preschool programs and their long-term effects. Barnett earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan. He is the author of more than 100 professional publications. Publications include Lives in the Balance, a benefit-cost analysis of preschool education based on a 25 year study, and, with co-editor Sarane Spence Boocock, Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty. Contact at 732-932-4350 Ext. 228 or sbarnett@nieer.org.

 

Xavier Botana is director of Assessment and Accountability in the Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability of the Chicago Public Schools.  In this capacity he coordinates district assessment and accountability policy implementation including issues related to the implementation of the federal NCLB law.  Previously, he was director of NCLB Accountability and Teacher Accountability for CPS.  Before coming to CPS in 2002, Xavier was division administrator for Innovation and Reform and Middle Level Education at the Illinois State Board of Education.  In this capacity he was a liaison to Chicago Public Schools for accountability issues and managed state and federal programs focused on disadvantaged students.  Xavier has been a teacher and administrator in Illinois public schools.  He started as a bilingual teacher in suburban Palatine and Cicero, has worked in migrant camps and has been a building and district administrator.  He has also worked in school reform and restructuring efforts including the Chicago Alliance for Essential Schools and the Bensenville New American School.  Xavier has presented and consulted nationally on accountability and assessment practices. Xavier has been admitted to candidacy for a Doctorate in Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.  Contact at (773) 553-2430 or xebotana@cps.k12.il.us.

 

Miriam Calderon is the Manager of the Early Childhood Education Policy Project at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in Washington D.C. Ms. Calderon's policy work focuses on enhancing early childhood educational opportunities for Latino children and their families.  Prior to joining NCLR, Ms. Calderon served as an Assistant to Multnomah County Commissioner Serena Cruz, the first Latina elected to the Board of County Commissioners in Portland, Oregon.  In this capacity, Ms. Calderon coordinated the Coalition for Latino Education and implemented a task force to address gang violence in the Latino community.  As a social worker, Ms. Calderon worked as a mental health consultant for Latino families in a Head Start center, coordinated a mentoring program for Latino youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and assisted Latino youth that had been unsuccessful in the public school system to pursue their educational goals.  Contact at mcalderon@nclr.org or 202-785-1670.

 

Paul Cuadros is an award-winning investigative reporter who has written about issues of race and poverty for more than 10 years in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina. Cuadros worked for The Chicago Reporter, an awarding-winning investigative journal that focuses on race and poverty issues. While at the Reporter, Cuadros won several awards for his reporting on housing, health care for the poor, and immigration issues. In 1997, he moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Center for Public Integrity and helped write the books, The Buying of the Congress, and The Cheating of America, How the Rich Cheat on their Taxes. In 1999, Cuadros won an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship to report and write about the migration of Latinos to rural towns in the South and moved to Pittsboro, North Carolina. Cuadros has reported and written about the impact immigrant families have had on schools, health care, industry, and housing. Following his fellowship, Cuadros went to work for Time Magazine as a freelance reporter. In 2002, he won the National Association of Hispanic Journalist's online award for his special series for Time.com on an unaccompanied minor who had crossed the U.S. and Mexico border and had been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for more than a year. The series helped to get the minor Ramon Zepeda released from detention. In the same year, he was invited to be a fellow for the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland and attended the course on Children and Trauma. Cuadros continues to write about immigrant children and schools in his soon-to-be released book, Los Jets!, The Great Latino Migration Comes to Small Town America. The book tells the story of Cuadros who fights local school officials to create a high school soccer team of mostly immigrant kids, coaches the kids, and wins a state championship in three seasons. The book is to be published by Rayo publishing, a division of HarperCollins. Contact at 919-542-1932 or pcuadros@mindspring.com.

 

Mary Lou de Leon Siantz is a Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University and Director of Milagros, Center of Excellence in Migrant Health.  Milagros’ mission is research, training, technical assistance and service learning in Migrant Health and Migrant Education. She has served on the Advisory Council of the National Institute for Nursing Research.  She was formerly the President of Advocates for Child/Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing and of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses.  She has been a member of the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine Committees on the Health Status of Immigrant Children and Patient Safety and the Workforce Environment and a Consultant to the Committee on Workforce Diversity in Health Professions. Dr. de Leon Siantz currently serves as a member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality.  She is internationally recognized for her research with migrant children and families.  She  has collaborated with the Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatria Ramon de la Fuente Muñiz of Mexico and is a Senior Fellow of the Fundación Solaridad  Mexicano Americana, and a member of the Network on Research on Migration and Health for the United States, Mexico, and Central America supported by the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico (INSP) and the California-Mexico Health Initiative (CMHI).  She currently serves on a mental health research team of the Pan American Health Organization.  Nationally her funded research and publications have focused on Risk and Protective factors that affect the mental health of migrant families as well as the cognitive, social/emotional development and school readiness of migrant children.  She has been recognized by the Texas Migrant Council for her research.  She has been listed among the Who’s Who among Hispanic Americans and most recently recognized among the Top Latinas in Health and Science by Hispanic magazine.  Contact (202) 687-1317 or at mls26@georgetown.edu.

 

Kyle Dodson is currently the Principal of the Lee Academy Pilot School in Dorchester, MA.  During the prior school year he was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Boston Principal Fellows Program, a one-year intensive program to train new leaders for the Boston Public Schools.   Before coming to Boston, Mr. Dodson worked at Saint Michaels’s College (Colchester. VT) for eight years doing a number of jobs, the last of which was as the Director of Multicultural Student Affairs.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Dodson worked as a Mortgage-backed Securities trader at the Wall Street firm, PaineWebber Inc.   Mr. Dodson earned an undergraduate degree in History from Harvard University and an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University.   Mr. Dodson is currently working toward an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies  from the University of Vermont.  Contact at 617 635 6619 or kdodson@boston.k12.ma.us.

 

Chris Drape is in his second year as principal at The New School @ SouthShore, a PreK- 3rd grade (growing by a grade each year – up to 8th) Seattle public school.  He has also served as an assistant principal in a K-8 school and the 9th grade dean of students in a high school, both in Seattle.  Before becoming an administrator, he taught high school history and coached cross-country for nine years. Chris graduated from Stanford University in 1987 with a degree in urban studies and received his masters in teaching at Seattle University in 1993. He received his administrative certificate in 2003 from the Danforth Educational Leadership Program at the University of Washington.  While in the program, he received the Seattle Public Schools’ “Love ‘em and Lead ‘em” Fellowship, a fellowship honoring the late John Stanford – former superintendent of Seattle Public Schools – that identifies future school leaders of promise. Chris has lived in the community his school serves for 17 years, and most of his education experience has been within this community.  Education is the vehicle through which he is able to contribute to family and community development, a perspective that is integral to the vision The New School.  Chris shares this work with his wife of 16 years, Chrissie, and his two sons – Andy (10) and Matt (7).  Matt is a second grader at The New School.  Contact at 206-252-6560 or cjdrape@seattleschools.org.

 

Sheena Farthing Tuckson has been principal of Benjamin Stoddert Elementary School, a small, pre-kindergarten through 5th grade school in Northwest Washington, D.C., since 2001. With an extensive background in early childhood education and special education, in both Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, Sheena brings a knowledge base and set of beliefs that make up a personal philosophy that “together, we can make a difference.” While under her leadership, Stoddert School has received widespread recognition as well as a variety of awards, moving the school successfully forward as a leader in the No Child Left Behind era. Under her leadership, Stoddert was the first recipient of the city-wide Pearl Cooper School That Reads award, recognizing the DC Public School with the best reading program in the city. Sheena received $5000 toward books for the classroom libraries. She is President Elect of the District of Columbia  Association of Elementary School Principals.  Initially graduating from Howard University with a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education, Sheena went back to school and earned two Master’s degrees from Trinity College, one in Early Childhood Education and one in Educational Supervision and Administration. Contact at (202) 882-1652 or sheena.tuckson@k12.dc.us.

 

Vincent L. Ferrandino is the executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), which serves 30,000 elementary and middle-level principals in the United States, Canada, and overseas. Formerly the executive director/CEO of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Ferrandino served his home state of Connecticut as its commissioner of education, as superintendent of schools in Weston, and as superintendent of Regional School District # 6, where he had been a principal.  He also served as a teacher, unit principal, and assistant principal in West Nyack and Mamaroneck, NY.  Dr. Ferrandino has also been an adjunct professor at Southern Connecticut State University and a visiting lecturer at several colleges and universities. He served as president of the Association for the Advancement of International Educations, and also served as chairman of the Board of Governors for the U.S. Department of Education’s Regional Laboratory at Brown University. He received the Distinguished Fellow award from Phi Delta Kappa, the professional educational fraternity, and has been recognized for his contributions to education by several educational, business, and community organizations. Since becoming executive director, Dr. Ferrandino has expanded NAESP’s services for urban and middle-grade members and introduced programs in the international educational arena.  Contact at 703-684-3345 or through Raven Padgett at rpadgett@naesp.org.

 

Barbara Fox Mason is executive director of the Child & Family Network Centers in Alexandria, Va. In 1984, Mason joined a group of women living in a housing project in Alexandria, Va. and founded the Alexandria Community Network Preschool (now the Child and Family Network Centers, CFNC). From that humble beginning she has been the driving force behind CFNC’s growth from one preschool serving 6 children to a comprehensive model program, accredited by the NAEYC, serving 218 young children and their families. Mason created the preschool’s teaching program, introducing the High/Scope curriculum in 1990, which is nationally recognized as especially effective for at-risk children in multi-cultural settings. She also brought in services to diagnose and treat learning delays, speech/language therapy, psychological assessments, social skills groups, occupational therapy and dental, hearing and vision screenings for students. In 1996, Mason organized a family support program that encourages parent’s involvement in their child's education and helps families move toward self-sufficiency. Over the years Mason has continuously expanded this program which currently includes: Case Management, Health and Social Services, ESL/Family Literacy, and Financial Literacy onsite in neighborhoods that have the highest concentration of families living in poverty in Northern Virginia. She is recognized as a strong advocate for programs for at-risk children and a community leader, and serves on many local and national boards. She has received many awards, including The Volvo for Life Awards as one of only 100 heroes selected nationwide out of 4,500 nominees. Contact at 703-836-0214 or bmason@cfnc-online.org.

 

Christine E. Frude has been principal of Paradise Valley Elementary, Casper, WY. For ten years. The school includes PreK - 6th grade (430 students). She also coordinates the Natrona County School District #1's 18 “All Ready” preschools as well as five other “All Ready” preschools located across the state of Wyoming. She has spoken widely on early childhood issues, including presentations to the Wyoming Legislative subcommittees of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Wyoming Association of Elementary School Principals. She has served on Wyoming's Early Childhood Development Council for five years (chairperson 2002-2004) and the Wyoming Association of Elementary School Principal's Executive committee. She is also Federal Relations coordinator for the Wyoming Association of Elementary School Principals and served on NAESP's Early Childhood Standards Committee which helped to draft and edit “Leading Early Childhood Learning Communities, What Principals Should Know and be Able To Do.” She was honored as Wyoming's National Distinguished Principal in 2003. Contact at Christine_frude@ncsd.k12.wy.us.

 

Bill Graves has worked as a reporter for 28 years at The Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho, The Bulletin in Bend, Ore., The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and since 1990, The Oregonian in Portland, Ore. He has covered education for 18 years. He co-authored a book on education reform, Poisoned Apple, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1996. He served on the board of the Education Writers Association for a decade, and as president in 1998 and 1999. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1998-99. He is now a special projects reporter for The Oregonian’s Education and Politics Team. Contact at 503 221-8549 or billgraves@news.oregonian.com.

 

Greg Greicius Senior Vice President, Educational Initiatives, Turnaround for Children, is a 35-year veteran of the NYC Board of Education.  Greg has worked as a teacher, staff developer, clinician, supervisor, and district director of instructional support teams.  His work has focused primarily on children with social, emotional, and academic risk factors, both in and out of special education. For the past five years Greg has worked with district and school leadership promoting the development of comprehensive school-based student support systems and interdisciplinary staff development activities. With leaders from the Bronx mental health community and the Department of Mental Health, he has developed effective inter-agency collaborations in support of the area’s children, families, and schools.  These collaborations have improved the capacity of many schools to identify and properly support children in crisis, reducing the number of inappropriate calls to 911 and fostering early identification of children in need of immediate assistance.  Through this work he has supported the application of the public health model to school-based mental health concerns. He is a frequent presenter on educational leadership issues and continues to promote the development of comprehensive, positive student support systems. Contact at 212-889-3005 or ggreicius@tfcusa.org.

 

Florence Hu is the assistant principal at Worthington Elementary School, a facilitator of Cultural Proficiency, and a coach for Educational Leaders for the Howard County Public School System. In 2003, Dr. Hu spearheaded the Parent and Child ESOL Program (P.A.C.E.) at St. John’s Lane Elementary School in Ellicott City, Maryland.  This program has since received national attention and has been adopted by many schools in Howard County.  The most recent report, Bridging a Cultural Divide can be found in Principal, March/April 2005.As a speech-language pathologist, Dr. Hu has had extensive experience working with children of all ages in schools and clinical settings.  She was named Teacher of the Year at Pocomoke Elementary School in 1994.  She received her Doctor of Education degree from University of Maryland-College Park.  For the past five years, Dr. Hu has served students and families of Howard County Public School System in the capacities of an administrator, a speech-language pathologist, and an interpreter. As a native of Taiwan, she understands the critical need of communication for a family new to an environment of different language and culture. In 2004, Dr. Hu was named Assistant Principal of the Year for the State of Maryland.  Contact at florence_hu@hcpss.org.

 

Linda Jacobson is an assistant editor at Education Week in Bethesda, Md. She has been covering early-childhood education at the paper since 1996, where her beats have also included teaching, state policy, parent involvement, after-school programs, and public engagement. She worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1990-1994, where she covered education in a large suburban school district. In 1994, she moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as assistant director of the Education Writers Association, where she organized seminars for reporters and wrote guides for journalists on covering a variety of education issues. She works from her home in Los Angeles. Contact at (323) 525-0972 or lindajack@earthlink.net.

 

Heng Lam Foong is Program Director of SSG/PALS for Health Program, a private, non-profit program in Los Angeles that provides health care interpretation, interpreter training, language proficiency testing, language access education, and language rights advocacy. During her ten years at PALS for Health, she led many innovative measures to bring culturally and linguistically appropriate health care to limited English proficient (LEP) communities of Southern California. Trained and guided by practical experience in policy work, Heng helped develop Los Angeles County’s first language rights campaign aimed at educating health care providers and limited-English proficient (LEP) individuals about their responsibilities and rights to linguistically appropriate health care under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under her leadership, PALS for Health also partnered with 4 other statewide community agencies and clinics to develop the Connecting Worlds Training for Health Care Interpreters curriculum and an accompanying language proficiency testing for health care interpreters.             Raised in a multilingual household, Heng passionately supports meaningful access to health care and is a member of the Technical Advisory Panel of the Joint Commission's Hospitals, Language and Culture project, Community Advisory Council for Care1st Health Plan, and a board member of the Los Angeles County Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Contact at (213) 553-1876 or hengf@palsforhealth.org.

 

Kathleen Leos is Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director, Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA), U.S. Department of Education. She is responsible for identifying major issues impacting the education of English language learners; assisting and supporting state and local efforts that emphasize academic standards, school accountability, professional training and parent involvement; and providing national leadership in promoting high-quality education for English language learners. Ms. Leos previously served as the policy advisor to Secretary Spellings on issues related to the No Child Left Behind Act, Title III, signed into law by the President on January 8, 2001. She was charged with developing policy, guidance and technical assistance, as well as disseminating Title III policy and regulations to all the stakeholders throughout the United States who serve the five and a half million non-English speaking students attending America's public, private, and charter schools. During her tenure at OELA, Ms. Leos has personally visited 35 states, Puerto Rico and Washington DC to interpret the law, train and create Federal-to-State-to-Local partnerships to ensure that each state agency and the community understood the responsibility they have to include all students in the No Child Left Behind accountability systems. For seven years (1995-2002) Ms. Leos served as a School Board trustee in Dallas, Texas where she held multiple positions at different times as President, Vice-President, and Chair of the Business, Personnel, and Education Committees. Ms. Leos was also the School Board's Legislative Liaison to the state capitol in Austin for three consecutive sessions. As a trustee she co-authored the state's HB 103 or "No Exemption" law which required all English Language Learners to be included in Texas' accountability system for the first time in the states' history. Ms. Leos, an active mother of five children, founded and was President of Basic English Inc., a non-profit agency in Dallas, Texas, created to transition non-English speaking families into English while staying focused on their children's academic achievement. She has received numerous awards and recognitions. Contact at 202-401-1576.

 

Clive McFarlane is a columnist for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, and a U.S. Army veteran. Prior to becoming a columnist, he covered the education beat, K-12, for the T&G for more than 10 years. He previously wrote for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a weekly alternative newspaper in San Francisco, California, and the Southbridge Evening News, a daily newspaper in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Contact at cmcfarlane@telegram.com.

 

Margie McHugh was, until October 2005, executive director of The New York Immigration Coalition.  She joined the fledgling NYIC as its sole employee in 1990, and in the ensuing years, grew it into one of the leading voices for immigrant rights in the country.  Currently in the process of transitioning to the next stage of her career, Ms. McHugh resigned from her position in October 2005 but remains with the NYIC in the capacity of senior policy and program advisor for the next several months.  Formed in 1987, the NYIC is a non-profit umbrella advocacy organization for more than 160 groups in New York State that work with "newcomers" to our country – immigrants, refugees, and asylees.  Its membership includes immigrant rights advocates, immigrant community leaders, social service providers, community-based ethnic and non-profit organizations, as well as leaders from labor, academia and the legal professions. The purpose of the NYIC is to provide a forum for the state's newcomer communities to discuss urgent issues, and to provide a vehicle for collective action in addressing these issues.  The NYIC’s current agenda includes fighting for broad legalization and comprehensive immigration reform; increasing the availability of key integration services, such as English language and literacy programs, legal services, and citizenship classes; combating discrimination and ensuring civil rights and workplace protections; and improving immigrants’ access to quality health care, education, and safe and affordable housing.  Ms. McHugh joined the NYIC staff in 1990, prior to which, she worked in the Mayor's Office as deputy director of the 1990 census project, and as executive assistant to Mayor Koch's chief of staff.  Since 1992, Ms. McHugh has served on the board of directors of the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., the country's leading advocacy organization on immigration policy issues.  She is also a member of the board of Working Today, a national non-profit member organization promoting the interests of America's new workforce. Ms. McHugh has been a frequent commentator on immigration policy issues, having appeared on CNN, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and dozens of national and local news programs.  She has testified on a wide range of community issues at numerous city and state hearings, and also before federal commissions.  Contact at 212-627-2227.

 

Veena Merchant is Director and Editor-in-Chief of News India-Times and Desi Talk. She is the founding member of the Board of Directors of Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA), a non-profit. Prior to that, she was Deputy Publisher of the India Abroad group since the early seventies when she came to the United States. Before that, she was Editor-in-Chief of Chic magazine, published by the Modi group of Industries, and was associated with the Eve’s Weekly group in India. She was editor of special sections and Editor-in-Chief of their annual publication. Prior to her publishing career, she owned the first modeling agency in India in the early sixties. Her commitment to fitness activity led to a TV series on Doordarshan in the mid-eighties. Contact at 212-675-7515.

 

Carol Miller has been principal of McFerran Preparatory Academy in Louisville, an inner city, Title I-eligible elementary school serving approximately 950 preschool through 5th grade students, since 1981.  Ninety-five percent of McFerran's students qualify for free- or reduced-priced meals.  During Carol's tenure as principal, McFerran's scores on the high-stakes, state mandated assessments have risen from an academic index of 58.9 to 87.7.  McFerran is widely recognized as an exemplary, high achieving, low-income school.  In 2005 McFerran and its principal were recognized for education excellence in several ways. Two publications-Inside the Black Box of High-Performing High Poverty Schools, A report from the Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence, and Leading Early Childhood Learning Communities What Principals Should Know and Be Able to Do, an NAESP publication, cited McFerran as a school of excellence. Fordham University Graduate School of Education and the American Association of School Administrators selected McFerran as a finalist for the 2005 National School Change Award.  In 2004 Carol was named the Jefferson County Public School Elementary Principal of the Year.  In 2003 the superintendent selected McFerran as the exemplary elementary school for the Broad Prize for Urban Education site visit.  Contact at cmiller9@jefferson.k12.ky.us.

 

Daniel H. Muñoz, Jr. is Editor of La Prensa San Diego. The newspaper was started by his father, Daniel L. Muñoz, Sr. in 1976. At that time there were approximately 35 bilingual/Hispanic newspapers in the United States.  Today they number in the vicinity of 950.  La Prensa San Diego was born out of the Chicano movement and was an effort aimed at bringing a Chicano/Hispanic perspective to the issues.  As it was coined at the time, we saw the news through our “Brown Eyes.” In 1976 the Chicano movement was playing a major role in the drive for self determination, self identity, and in addressing the issues facing this community.  We were not journalists; we were individuals trying to bring about change and in any effort to create change, media plays a critical role.  I started working with my father to help wherever and whenever I could, which quickly turned into a fulltime job, a job that I am still doing 30 years later. Contact at 619-336-0370 or dhmunoz@covad.net (http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org).

 

Delia Pompa is Vice President, Educational Programs, National Council of La Raza. She is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the education of language minority students. Ms. Pompa has extensive policy and programmatic experience, and has received numerous recognitions for her efforts on behalf of language minority children at the local, state, and federal level. Ms. Pompa began her career in bilingual education as a kindergarten teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, and went on to serve as the Executive Director for Bilingual Programs and Childhood Education at the Houston Independent School District. She also served as the Assistant Commissioner for Program Development at the Texas Education Agency before coming to Washington, D.C. as the Children’s Defense Fund Director of Education, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and Youth Development Initiatives. In 1995, Ms. Pompa was appointed Director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (OBEMLA) by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. During her tenure at OBEMLA, she worked to ensure continued and increased funding for bilingual education and led the Administration’s efforts to expand educational opportunities for Limited English Proficient (LEP) children. Prior to becoming Vice President of Educational Programs for the National Council of La Raza, Ms. Pompa was Executive Director of the National Association of Bilingual Education. Contact at dpompa@nclr.org or 202-785-1670.

 

Juana Ponce de Leon is Editor of Voices That Must Be Heard and Director, National Grassroots Media Project, Independent Press Association-New York.  A former IPA Ethnic Journalist Fellow, Juana has also been the editor-in-chief of Siete Cuentos Editorial, the Spanish-language imprint at Seven Stories Press. She is the Executive Director of Esta en tus manos, a nonprofit Spanish-language editorial organization, and has served on New York State Council on the Arts (2000-2003). In addition, she is the former editor of LS, the literary supplement for New Mass Media newspapers. She has edited several literary collections, including Our Word is Our Weapon — Selected Writings of Subcomandante Marcos, Dream With No Name—Contemporary Cuban Fiction. She also co-edited an anthology of community testimonies entitled In Search of Common Unity. Contact at 212-279-1442 or nyvoices@indypress.org.

 

Cindy Rodriguez has been a staff reporter at WNYC since July of 2002. She covers immigration and housing and has done several pieces on the homeless crisis in New York as well as the plight of undocumented immigrants. Rodriguez has contributed to the nationally distributed NPR program Latino USA, among her contributions was a post September 11th feature that earned her an NFCB Golden Reel award. She also contributes to Public Radio International's “The World” and has been a guest on the BBC and the Tavis Smiley Show. She recently took part in a one-hour documentary that aired earlier this year. The project, sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio was entitled, "Feet in Two Worlds – Immigrants in a Global City".  Rodriguez is originally from San Antonio, Texas and moved to New York in 1995. Prior to her work as a journalist, she worked as a caseworker distributing public assistance programs in Austin, Texas and also helped manage construction sites in New York City. She graduated from the University of Texas in 1991.  Contact at crodriguez@wnyc.org.

 

Roberto Rodriguez is Senior Education Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.  Contact at 202-224-5501 or Roberto.rodriguez@labor.senate.gov.

 

Mary Sanchez is a weekly syndicated columnist with Knight Ridder Tribune, specializing in Latin American issues; trade, immigration, race, ethnicity and culture. She also is an editorial columnist for The Kansas City Star. Sanchez also writes a monthly column for The Poynter Institute, a journalism website and has been a correspondent for EFE, a wire service based in Madrid, Spain. Sanchez has lived in Mexico and traveled extensively in Central America.  Contact at 816-234-4752 or msanchez@kcstar.com.

 

Jack P. Shonkoff is a board-certified pediatrician whose professional interests focus on the intersection of science, policy, and practice in the service of closing the gap between what we know and what we do to advance the healthy development of children and their families. He currently chairs the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a multidisciplinary collaboration comprising leading scientists in early childhood and early brain development, whose mission is to bring sound and accurate science to bear on public decision-making affecting the lives of young children.  Dr. Shonkoff is the Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and former Dean of The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.  He has received multiple professional honors. Under the auspices of the National Academies, Dr. Shonkoff chaired the Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development for the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, and co-edited its final report, From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. He also served as Chair of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, and as a member of the Panel on Child Care Policy, the Committee on the Assessment of Family Violence Interventions, and the Roundtable on Head Start Research. Dr. Shonkoff has served on numerous professional networks and public interest advisory boards, and authored more than 130 publications, including 9 books; co-edited two editions of the widely-heralded Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention; and served on the editorial board of a number of scholarly journals, including Child Development and Infant Mental Health Journal. Contact at 781-736-3787 or shonkoff@brandeis.edu.

 

Frank H. Stetson is Community Superintendent of Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools. He supervises 35 elementary, middle and high schools, serving approximately 25,000 students.  He has the responsibility for overseeing the achievement of the students, the performance of the schools, the selection of school principals, and the evaluation of the administrators of the schools.  He serves four K-12 clusters of schools which include students who have the highest levels of poverty as well as students with the lowest levels of poverty in Montgomery County. Prior to becoming a community superintendent, Dr. Stetson was a high school principal for twelve years, both in Prince Geor ge's and Montgomery counties in Maryland.  He introduced more rigorous courses of studies at both schools, substantially increasing student participation and success in honors and advanced placement courses. He places great value on principals working in a K-12 partnership to insure that students not only have the pre-requisite skills to move onto the next level but also that they will be ready to participate in rigorous courses of study at the high school level. He has worked closely with the development of the very successful early childhood initiatives, among other programs. Dr. Stetson also was a special education teacher working with elementary and secondary students with learning and emotional disabilities.

 

Patricia Sullivan is the Director for the Center on Education Policy (CEP).  CEP is a national, independent advocate for public education and for more effective public schools. The Center helps Americans better understand the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools.  The Center focuses its work primarily on studying the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and tracking the use of high school exit exams and their impact on students.  Prior to joining CEP, Sullivan also served as the Deputy Director for Advocacy and Strategic Planning at the Council for Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Patricia Sullivan managed the re-positioning of CCSSO as a non-partisan organization to represent the interests of the nation’s state superintendents and commissioners of education.  In, addition she directed the development and implementation of a new set of communication strategies for both states and CCSSO regarding the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. In 2002, Ms. Sullivan was the principal partner in Sullivan Consulting Services, a service that provided advice and advocacy support for clients in the K-12, and postsecondary education, early education, and workforce arenas.  From 1992 to 2002, Ms. Sullivan served numerous roles at the senior education staff person at the National Governors Association (NGA).  Serving as the lead staff person to the NGA Health and Education Committee, and the National Education Goals Panel, Sullivan also supported the nation’s governors during the National Education Summits that occurred during the late 1990’s. As a follow-up to the 1996 Education Summit, Ms. Sullivan served as the founding Executive Director of Achieve, Inc.; helping to establish the organization and create an initial funding base to launch a new resource for states in the area of standards based reform. Prior to joining NGA, Ms. Sullivan served as Senior Legislative Assistant and Interim Staff Director to the then House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education.  Contact at 202-822-8065.

 

Pueng Vongs has been a journalist for the past 14 years, covering Asian communities for the past 9 years. She is currently a writer and editor with Pacific News Service and New California Media, a collaboration of ethnic media nationwide. There, she disseminates stories on immigrant and ethnic communities missed by mainstream media. PNS and NCM has published stories on children and families ranging from the high number of Hurricane Katrina orphans to missing Latino child border crossers to intolerance of South Asian and Muslim religious symbols in schools. A former Journalism Fellowships in Child and Family Policy fellow in 2004, she has written stories on the high rate of suicide among Asian youth in America as well as the rise of human trafficking of women and children globally. Her stories have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, Utne.com, Alternet, La Opinion, Sing Tao Daily, Nichi Bei Times among others. She also contributes radio pieces to National Public Radio programs, Pacific Time and the Tavis Smiley Show.  Pueng can be reached at pvongs@pacificnews.org or (415) 503-4170.

 

Eileen Wasow is the Deputy Executive Director of CentroNia, an NAEYC accredited community learning center in Washington, DC, which serves over 600 children, youth and families in a variety of high quality programs ranging from an infant center to a dual language charter school.  The Center also has a Professional Development Academy, a Family Institute and a department of Family Literacy. Prior to joining CentroNia, Wasow was the Associate Dean for the Department of Continuing Education at Bank Street College in New York City.  An early childhood educator and mentor teacher, for over 15 years, Wasow also had a strong interest in families, which led her to study at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy, where she received her certification in 1988.  Wasow has a Masters Degree from New York University with a specialization in Early Childhood Education.  Contact at 202-332-4200x160 or ewasow@centronia.org.

 

Jerry D. Weast is Superintendent of the Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest and most diverse school system in Maryland and the 17th largest district in the nation. Appointed to the position in 1999 and reappointed in 2003, Dr. Weast is directing an ambitious comprehensive reform effort designed to raise academic standards and narrow the achievement gap for nearly 140,000 students. In March, 2005, the school district was named the winner of Maryland’s most prestigious award for organizational performance excellence – the U.S. Senate Productivity Award. In recognition of his innovative leadership in early childhood education, professional development, school accountability, and parent involvement, Dr. Weast was named the Maryland Superintendent of the Year in 2003 and was one of the final four candidates for the National Superintendent of the Year in 2004. Dr. Weast has served as superintendent for 30 years, overseeing eight school districts in five states: Kansas, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, and South Dakota. He has been in public education since 1969 as a teacher and secondary school principal and has also been a clinical professor and instructor at several universities.  Contact at 301-279-3381.

 

Joe Williams covers the New York City schools for the New York Daily News. Previously he wrote about the Milwaukee Public Schools for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he won numerous local, state, and national awards for his coverage of that city's private school voucher program. His work frequently appears in the journal Education Next. He has authored chapters in three education-related books and his own book, Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education, was published this fall by Palgrave Macmillan books. He and his wife live in Manhattan with their two sons, both of who attend New York City public schools. Contact at jwilliams@alumni.marquette.edu.

 

Karen C. Woodson is Director of the Division of ESOL/Bilingual Programs. She has taught a range of courses at the elementary and secondary levels, including reading, Spanish, exploratory courses in Japanese, French, Italian and German, and English as a Foreign Language.  She currently teaches graduate courses in Applied Linguistics English Grammar, and ESOL teaching methodology at the University of Maryland at College Park and  has also taught graduate courses in Linguistics at and in the Structure of English, Spanish, and Foreign Language Teaching Methodology at Trinity College and George Washington University  Her research interests center on identifying exemplary elementary ESOL program models, classroom second language acquisition, and content-based instruction.

 

Ann Bedford is Director of Pre–K12 Curriculum Projects, Assessment and Interventions. She began her career in early childhood education and has spent the past 15 years supporting curriculum reform and development in the areas of early childhood, science and mathematics.  She is the MCPS project director for the revised MCPS primary reading assessment using the mCLASS: Reading 3D software and personal digital assistants (PDA.)  This project was collaboration with Wireless Generation and Harcourt Achieve.

 

Robin Weaver has been Principal of Harmony Hills Elementary School for 18 years with the opportunity to shepherd the school community through demographic changes, school modernization, and implementation of the Linkages to Learning/School-based Health Center.  Over time, she has developed systems to support students in a school-wide Title 1 program where students living in poverty, often living in homes where English is the second language, achieve rigorous academic levels.

 

Felicia Piacente is Director of the Division of Preschool Special Education and Related Services. She has been a special education preschool and elementary teacher, and has worked in a special class, as a co-teacher, and as a resource teacher.  She was an instructional specialist for special education supporting elementary, middle and high schools. Prior to becoming the director of the Division of Preschool Special Education and Related Services, she served as special education supervisor in the Northeast Consortium and Sherwood cluster.