REIMAGINING EDUCATION: TEACHING AND LEARNING IN RACIALLY DIVERSE SCHOOLS

Glenn Singleton has devoted over thirty years to constructing racial equity worldwide and developing leaders to do the same. He is the creator of Courageous Conversations About Race (2006), a protocol for sustained, deep dialog, and Beyond Diversity™, the curriculum that has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to use it. As President and Founder of Pacific Educational Group, Inc. (PEG), Singleton has created an agency that has developed racially conscious leaders in a variety of sectors: education, government, business, law enforcement, and community organizing among them.

The work has been transformative and far-reaching. In September 2015, The United States Embassy selected PEG to guide law enforcement leaders throughout Western Australia. Singleton will launch the first Institute for Courageous Conversation – in New Zealand. In the US, Singleton has served on statewide commissions for racial equity in New York and California, and all the while he has stayed true to his hometown, Baltimore, the two-time host of PEG’s National Summit for Courageous Conversation.

Singleton’s passion for equity flows to and through his civic life as well. He is the founder of the Foundation for a College Education of East Palo Alto, California, an agency responsible for the collegiate admission and graduation of hundreds of students. Accolades for his work include The 100 Black Men of the Bay Area Community Service Award in 2015 and The Eugene T. Carothers Human Relations Award in 2003. Singleton is also member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. He currently resides in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Sonia Nieto has devoted her professional life to questions of diversity, equity, and social justice in education. With research focusing on multicultural education, teacher education, and the education of students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, she has written or edited eleven books and dozens of book chapters and journal articles, as well as a memoir, Brooklyn Dreams: My Life in Public Education. Her classic text, Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education is now in its 6th edition (the 2008 and 2012 editions were co-authored by her friend and colleague Patty Bode). The first edition (1992) was selected for the Museum of Education Readers’ Guide as one of the 100 books that helped define the field of education in the 20th century.

Dr. Nieto has received numerous awards for her scholarly work, activism, and advocacy, including six honorary doctorates. Elected as a Laureate of Kappa Delta Pi (2011), and a Fellow of AERA (2011), in 2015 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Education. She is married to Angel Nieto, a children’s book author and former teacher, and they have raised two daughters, Alicia and Marisa, and a granddaughter, Jazmyne. They are the proud grandparents of twelve grandchildren.

ANGELICA M. INFANTE-GREEN is the Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Instructional Support. Her portfolio includes overseeing the Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages; the Data Systems and Educational Technology Office; the Office of Assessment, Standards, and Curriculum; the Office of Special Education; and the Office of District and School Review. In her previous role as the Associate Commissioner for Bilingual Education and World Languages, she spearheaded the release of the nationally-recognized Blueprint for English Language Learners’ Success, a statewide framework that establishes clear expectations for administrators, policymakers, and practitioners to prepare English Language Learners (ELLs) for academic success. In addition, while she was leading this work, the Board of Regents adopted Commissioner’s Regulations Part 154, the foundation for progressive statewide policies governing ELL education. Ms. Infante-Green is an education visionary and a proven leader of change.

David J. Johns is the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. The Initiative works across federal agencies and with partners and communities nationwide to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African American students. Prior to joining the Department, Johns was a senior education policy advisor to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) under the leadership of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Before working for the Senate HELP committee under Chairman Harkin, Johns served under the leadership of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Johns also was a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Fellow in the office of Congressman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. Johns has worked on issues affecting low-income and minority students, neglected youth and early childhood education and with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). His research as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow served as a catalyst to identify, disrupt and supplant negative perceptions of black males within academia and society. Johns is committed to volunteer services and maintains an active commitment to improve literacy among adolescent minority males. Johns obtained a master’s degree in sociology and education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he graduated summa cum laude while simultaneously teaching elementary school in New York City. He graduated with honors from Columbia University in 2004 with a triple major in English, creative writing and African American studies. Johns was named to the Root100 in both 2014 and 2013, selected as a member of the Ebony Power 100 in 2015 and received an early career award from Columbia University, Teachers College in 2016.

For nearly a decade, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, an Associate Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University has worked with school districts around the country in an effort to improve the social and academic outcomes of all students. Concerned with equity pedagogy, she has assisted personnel within K-12 settings with creating more culturally responsive and racially literate environments. Yolanda is the 2016 recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) Mid-Career Award, and a 2012-2013 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Diversity Fellow. Her work has appeared in several refereed journals including Teachers College Record, Urban Education, Teaching English in a Two Year College (TETYC), English Quarterly, English Education, and The Journal of Negro Education. She is lead-editor of the book Teacher Education and Black Communities: Implications for Access, Equity, and Achievement (IAP). At Teachers College, she is founder and faculty sponsor of the Racial Literacy Roundtables Series where for eight years, national scholars, doctoral students, and pre-service and in-service Master’s students facilitate informal conversations around race and other issues involving diversity and teacher education for the Columbia University community.

A second generation Afro Cuban-American, Luis Versalles was born and raised in Bloomington, Minnesota. His bilingual and bi-cultural life experiences have fueled his passion for fostering racial,linguistic, and cultural equity in education for all students. After completing his public school K-12 education, Luis went on to complete a Bachelor's degree and Master’s of Education with emphasis on Second Languages and Cultures from the University of Minnesota, becoming the first college graduate from his family. This experience motivates his work in coaching school leaders to better understand the complexities of families of color navigating both the K-12 educational system and higher education. Versalles specializes in aligning district strategic plans with PEG’s Systemic Racial Equity Transformation Framework to facilitate greater organizational alignment in achieving racial equity system-wide. In addition, he leads a team of equity transformation specialists in guiding school districts through this work in the domains of Leadership, Culturally Relevant Learning and Teaching, and Family/Community Engagement and Empowerment.

Versalles began his professional career as a teacher of Spanish and English as a Second Language in his hometown of Bloomington and neighboring Richfield, MN. His teaching career spanned elementary, middle, and high school levels. As an administrator he worked as District Magnet Programs Grant project coordinator and later as Program Coordinator, Assistant Principal, and Principal of Richfield Dual Language School. Luis was instrumental in the community outreach, feasibility study, and coordination required to bring this school into existence as the first suburban two-way immersion school in the history of the state of Minnesota. Recognizing his leadership experiences in two-way immersion education, Luis was awarded the Joyce Bilingual Preschool Bridging Gaps, Bridging Cultures award, honoring educational leaders in the Latino community of the Twin Cities. He has presented at the University of Minnesota's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition Summer Institute as well as the Louisiana Department of Education on Immersion Principal Leadership Competencies. Versalles also has presented, along with researchers from the Center for Applied Linguistics and teacher leaders from Richfield Dual Language School, on Fostering Racial, Linguistic, and Cultural Equity in Two-Way Immersion at the La Cosecha National Conference of Dual Language New Mexico and was a keynote speaker at the 2015 Association of Two-Way and Dual Language Education National Conference on Courageous Leadership: Interrogating the Role of Race in Racial Disparities in Two-Way Bilingual Immersion, and was recognized for their national Promoting Bilingualism Award in 2016.

Ali Michael is Director of K-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Co-Founder and Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators. She is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education (Teachers College Press, 2015): a book designed to support teachers in the long term and personal process of understanding the role that race plays in their lives and in their classrooms. She is also co-editor of Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (2015, Stylus Press). She and her partner, Michael, live in Philadelphia and consider questions of race and education on a daily basis in raising their two children.

Dr. Christopher Emdin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science andTechnology at Teachers College, Columbia University; where he also serves as Director of Science Education at the Center for Health Equity and Urban Science Education. He is also the Associate Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles, most recently For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education.

He is an alumni fellow at the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, and currently serves as Minorities in Energy Ambassador for the U.S. Department of Energy and the STEAM Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Emdin is a social critic, public intellectual and science advocate whose commentary on issues of race, culture, inequality and education have appeared in dozens of influential periodicals including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Dr. Felicia Moore Mensah is Professor of Science Education and past Program Coordinator of the Science Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Appointed as Senior Advisor to the Provost for Student Affairs, Professor Mensah is serving as a liaison between administration and the student body. Professor Mensah received her doctorate in Science Education from Florida State University (May 2003) and postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science at Michigan State University (June 2003-July 2005). Professor Mensah’s research in science education focuses on diversity, equity, and science teacher identity as well as gender issues and teacher professional development in STEM education.

Amy Stuart Wells, the Director of the Reimagining Education Summer Institute and a Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also the Director of the Center for Understanding Race and Education (CURE) and co-Director of the Public Good, a non-profit public school support organization for racially and ethnically diverse schools. In February, 2016, Wells and her colleagues published a Century Foundation report titled, How Racially Diverse Schools and Classrooms Can Benefit All Students. For the last 25 years, her research and writing has focused broadly on issues of race and education and more specifically on educational policies such as school desegregation, school choice, charter schools, and tracking and how they shape and constrain opportunities for students of color. Wells’ on-going research project, “Metro Migrations, Racial Segregation and School Boundaries,” examines urban and suburban demographic change and the role that public schools and their boundaries play in who moves where. The final report from the suburban research phase of that project, Divided We Fall: The Story of Separate and Unequal Suburban School Districts 60 years after Brown, was published in Spring 2014; related articles were published in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, The Atlantic CitiLab, and Long Island Newsday.

Wells is also the recipient of several honors and awards. She is a member of the National Academy of Education (2014 inductee), a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (2013 inductee), 2007-2008 Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; a 2001-02 Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation's Scholars Program; the 2000 Julius & Rosa Sachs Lecturer, Teachers College-Columbia University; and the 2000 AERA Early Career Award for Programmatic Research. In 1999-2000 she was a Russell Sage Visiting Scholar. In 1995-96 she was a National Academy of Education-Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral fellow, and 1990-91 she was a Spencer Dissertation Fellow.

Dr. Mariana Souto-Manning is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a former preschool and primary grades teacher and now works with teachers, schools, and districts throughout the world supporting their development of culturally relevant, multicultural, racially just, and critical teaching. She is committed to preparing teachers to design and carry out fully inclusive, culturally relevant, and racially just education, so that they can successfully work with young children of color with and without dis/abilities, from low-income, immigrant, and bilingual backgrounds in rich ways. Mariana is author of the award-winning book Multicultural Teaching in the Early Childhood Classroom: Tools, Strategies and Approaches (Teachers College Press, 2013) and co-author of the newly released Reading, Writing, and Talk: Inclusive Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners (Teachers College Press, 2016).

Michelle Knight-Manuel is Professor of Education and Senior Advisor to the Provost at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a former middle school teacher and high school college adviser. Her research contributes to the fields of teacher preparation, school reform efforts and teaching and learning within community-based organizations. She examines inequities within the educational pipeline for Black and Latina/o youth and investigates the educational and civic assets of immigrant youth and young adults. Michelle is the co-author of College Ready: Preparing Black and Latina/o youth for higher education – A Culturally Relevant Approach. Recently, she served as the Director of Culturally Relevant College and Career Readiness for the New York City Department of Education’s Expanded Success Initiative, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Career and College Readiness.