Alumni

As a change agent in Sarasota, Florida, my experience establishing instructional models that address the needs of our most vulnerable students led me to Teachers College EPSA program, where I complemented years of practice with scholarship, making me far more effective.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2020

Associate Director of Admissions, Columbia School of Social Work

I began my career in education at Columbia University’s Undergraduate Office of Financial Aid. What was originally a nice day job as a Financial Aid Customer Support Representative to support my acting habit quickly became a life changing role. I found that I loved working with students and made it my mission to be a trusted resource for the populations we served. I worked up the ranks from Customer Support Rep to Financial Aid Officer and eventually to Assistant Director. As Assistant Director, I worked with many incredible students and served on a number of special projects, but my role as a financial aid liaison for the students in the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) ignited my passion to better understand the societal mechanisms that impact a student’s educational journey. In 2018, I applied to the Sociology and Education master's degree program with a concentration in Education Policy at Teachers College, and I graduated in May of 2020. The program has given me the vocabulary and the analytical skills to advocate for positive change in the spaces I work. Currently, I serve as the Associate Director of Admissions at Columbia School of Social Work. I felt uniquely prepared for the challenge in no small part to the education I received at TC. Every day, I work with students who share my commitment to access and equity. The pursuit of a just society is a long and winding road, but the knowledge I gained from the Sociology and Education Master’s Program at Teachers College has given me an arsenal of tools to be a force of positive change in educational spaces.

Daughter of a founding board member and former teacher of one of the first charter schools opened in the Bay Area, California, a career in education seemingly was inevitable. My deep interest in the intersection of factors that tend to the needs of the whole child stemmed from my adolescent experiences involved in a myriad of enrichment programs via school and the community where I resided. Having recently graduated from Howard University, where I served as the National Director of Jewels Inc., a mentoring program, interned as the Program Manager at Dreams for Kids, and coordinated the STEM summer camp at Girls Inc., Washington DC., I firmly believe that youth require academic, social, and emotional support via school and enrichment programs to be college and career ready.

I enrolled in the Sociology and Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University with a desire to expand my knowledge on the social and political factors that affect education policy as it relates to comprehensive education. The esteemed faculty in the department of Education Policy and Social Analysis offered courses such as the Federal Policy Institute and School Law Institute. These institutes immersed me in the world of education policy both in Washington, DC and New York and connected me with influential leaders in research, government, and academia.

My career and research interests include comprehensive education, organizational culture, and urban education.

Currently, I serve as Operations Associate of the Charter Network Accelerator at Achievement First. The Charter Network Accelerator is an 18-month national leadership development program for CEOs and Instructional Leaders of charter management organizations. My range of responsibilities include project management, operations, team systems and data, and knowledge management.

Previously, I was an administrator at the Harlem Children’s Zone. As Dean of School Culture, I managed a team of change agents committed to the non-instructional needs of the scholars and school. I directly managed school data and systems, family engagement, discipline and attendance. I, also, worked closely with the school deans, school counselor, and social worker to ensure scholars were receiving the necessary support to be successful.

I am grateful for the opportunity to attend and graduate from TC. I often cross paths with TC alumni and am constantly reminded of the lasting impact the program has had on our career trajectories and the commitment we have to the work of preparing young minds and hearts for the bright futures ahead of them.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2006

Executive Director, White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans
U.S. Department of Education

I entered the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College while teaching on 110th Street and Broadway, walking distance from the school.  Having recently graduated from Columbia College, Columbia University, I was frustrated with how few students from underrepresented communities have access to high quality education and workforce development programs and support services and was looking for programs, policies and practices to improve things—to increase access and improve quality.  The Sociology and Education Program provided me with a framework for understanding how social policy is developed and codified, a valuable framework that has buttressed my work in Washington, DC both on Capitol Hill and in the Administration.

I am currently the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (Initiative). President Obama established the Initiative, by Executive Order, to “help to restore the United States to its role as the global leader in education; strengthen the Nation by improving educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages; and help ensure that African Americans receive a complete and competitive education that prepares them for college, a satisfying career, and productive citizenship.” The Initiative has been tasked with delivering high-impact, evidentiary based solutions to meet the challenges African American students, schools and communities striving for educational excellence, from cradle to career.

Through my work I maintain active relationships with researchers informing relevant policy and practice—including both teacher/mentors Aaron Pallas and Amy Stuart Wells. I strive to remain an active member of the Teachers College Alumni Community. This past fall I had the pleasure of speaking during the admitted students’ weekend and annually look forward to engaging with Professor Sharon Lynn Kagan and the Teachers College Federal Policy Institute. The annual alumni panel provides me with an opportunity to reconnect with fellow Teachers College Alumni MaryEllen McGuire and Phillip Herr.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2010

Accreditation Associate
Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, Washington, DC

Every day, I use the knowledge and skills I gained in the Sociology and Education program.  During my 2.5 years with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, I have navigated between higher education, P-12, research, and policy settings in an effort to improve the preparation of educators.  It is at the cross-sections of these settings that I see our greatest hope for improving the teacher workforce.

In many ways, my work in designing standards and program evaluation is an extension of the research I began at Teacher’s College.  I have always been interested in how and what we teach teachers, and the study of social forces and their impact on education provided me with a new lens for exploring the topic.

Looking forward, I expect to develop resources for new and current educators by entering more entrepreneurial and technological spaces.

Though I have left the classroom, the perspective I gained as a teacher will never be lost. I am extremely thankful and encouraged by the fact that all the TC students, alumni, and faculty I have interacted with have a deep respect for teachers and the profession.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2021

Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Growing up in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse cities in the world, I firmly understood that inequalities existed, but it was the rich inclusivity of my community that shielded me from the extent to which they predicted larger social outcomes. I was surrounded by people of varied races and cultures and for me, this was the norm. It wasn’t until I moved to Florida for my undergraduate education, that the reality of certain inequalities became more apparent, especially for people of color.

Soon after starting school in Miami, I began to notice how different it was compared to my hometown. The longer I was a resident, the more I saw how unfairly people of color were treated. Communities were racially divided; brown people—including myself— were ignored and discriminated against in multiple settings across the city. I was most shocked to observe these inequities up close on an educational level when I began my student teaching. I detected how the reality of these racial and economic inequalities affected students and families of color. This realization encouraged me to question how school systems have viewed students of color and their ability to succeed, as well as how these students survive and thrive in school while battling negative self-fulfilling prophecies placed on them historically. From then on, teaching students of color and focusing on their needs in a system that was never created for them, became my passion.

Upon undergraduate graduation, I entered the NYC Department of Education as an elementary school teacher, teaching various grades from kindergarten to third grade. As an elementary educator in Blue-Ribbon schools, I was able to design and implement fun, creative, compelling, rigorous, and evidence and social-emotional-based learning content to achieve organizational goals. I was committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion goals across content and audience by including culturally relevant best practices in each of my lessons and facilitating open dialogues on racial equity and social justice across school departments. However, questions about the history of the negative relationship between children of color and school systems remained. I applied to the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College to deepen my understanding of the social organization of schools and school systems that educate Black and Brown students. While at Columbia, I was able to further examine how the school system has viewed these students, while taking steps to create actionable and meaningful change in the world of BIPOC students, and beyond. I have also been able to connect and collaborate with industry pioneers like Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Dr. Sonya Douglass-Horsford to enact this significant shift.

In my current role as Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, an organization that has dedicated itself to providing high-quality early childhood education and serves communities and families with high rates of poverty and lack of economic opportunities, I am able to create organization-wide curricular and implementation improvements that prompt students of color to recognize their worth, magic, and genius each day. I am eternally grateful to TC for arming me with exceptional historical and current industry knowledge, and for helping me realize –and actualize –the power I have in this work.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2022

Research Analyst
Research for Action

My commitment to education began through my experience working in a public elementary school in Southwest Philadelphia during my undergraduate years. I both loved my time at the school while also being alarmed by signs of disrepair, trauma, and neglect. The joy I experienced interacting with students and staff made me want to become a teacher, which I did in the School District of Philadelphia and later in a charter school in the South Bronx. Yet the evidence of persistent inequalities and injustices that I was witnessing led me to constantly question the structures I was working in.

With these experiences at the forefront, I enrolled in the Sociology & Education MA program at Teachers College, an opportunity which guided me to cultivate and refine the questions I was asking. Throughout my coursework, I deepened my knowledge on the systemic factors that shape the context of schooling while also building expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Best of all, the Master’s Integrative Project gave me the opportunity to design and execute a research study from start to finish, empowering me to conduct a case study of a New Jersey school district in the midst of an integration initiative.

 Now as I pursue a career in education research, I am grateful for the opportunity to have learned alongside peers who taught and challenged me with their critical insights and range of perspectives. I look forward to staying connected and continuing to be inspired in the years to come! 

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, MA 2013

Director of School Support
The Achievement Network

I came to TC’s Sociology and Education program after teaching four years at a public charter school in Brooklyn, NY. Around this time, I was sensing how complex and multifaceted educational inequity really was, and was specifically becoming attuned to challenges, from outside the school, that influence a child’s education. Each day, as I contrasted the need to understand the outside factors that shape current urban education with the “no excuses” mantra that permeated our school from the inside, my curiosity became insatiable. I knew it was time to delve more deeply into this curiosity and go to graduate school. Teachers College’s Sociology and Education program was a perfect match.

While I expected to broaden my knowledge base about the societal problems that manifest in urban education, I left with something even more valuable: multiple frameworks for understanding how society’s institutions may produce equity (or inequity) as a consequence of design. I came to understand that educational inequity is a small part of this larger story. And this perspective has been an invaluable part of my personal and professional growth.

In essence, my TC experience helped redefine what I identify as the root cause in educational inequity. Understanding the scope of the problem has helped me see that the landscape of social reform is not really a “landscape” fit for any broad brushed answers. Rather, it is more like a mosaic of many small solutions, to which I am even more deeply impassioned to commit in every way I can. Currently, I work as a Director of School Support with the Achievement Network. The Achievement Network (ANet) is a nonprofit that helps schools strengthen their practice around using standards and data to accelerate student learning in underserved communities. I specifically provide tailored coaching to over a dozen New Jersey school leaders, building their capacity to systematically apply and scale effective practice. Finally, I manage the strategic planning and delivery of network Learning and Professional Development for all 59 schools in our New Jersey Network. Outside of my professional responsibilities, I enjoy volunteering time and perspective to empower our sector’s professionals. Most recently, I have had the privilege to speak on career panel sessions for Education Pioneers and KIPP, contribute pieces to Teach For America’s “Pass the Chalk” blog, and to lead professional development training for the Urban Teaching Corps.

Sociology and Education Program
Teachers College, Columbia University, M.A. 2011

Researcher
The American Institutes for Research, Washington, DC

Supporting students in the communities of North Philadelphia as a McNair fellow was my introduction to educating. I believed in this meaningful model of tutelage and mentorship, to which I was in many ways both benefactor and beneficiary. After moving back to New York, I became involved with The Princeton Review and segued this into a temporary teaching position at a public high school. All of these experiences led me to pursue my Master of Arts in the Sociology and Education program in the department of Education Policy and Social Analysis at Columbia University’s Teachers College.  Sociology was the lens through which I best began to understand the successes, limitations and failures of educational policies and practices. After experiencing Professor Kagan's Federal Policy Institute, I was convinced to move to Washington, DC and be part of the influential education research community. This unique and highly coveted course offered by Teachers College gave me a brutish yet motivational insider's perspective of our nation's political labyrinth.

Currently, I am part of a robust albeit small team at The American Institutes for Research, supporting the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) program, contracted by the National Center for Education Statistics. We are currently working on the ECLS-K:2011 survey, intended to provide researchers and policymakers with meaningful national data on children's early school experiences, development and characteristics. In addition to strengthening my quantitative and analytic skills, my TC coursework in evaluation methods, cognitive interviewing and ethnography prepared me for many of the quality assurance activities I perform.

My interests and contributions to other areas of education research include urban university-community partnerships; monitoring competency-based education reform; policy solutions addressing learning loss; and a trend analysis of the roles of high school counselors.

I am appreciative of the relationships cultivated at TC, and am empowered by our network united by the mission to progress quality and equity in education for the purpose of improving and enlightening individuals and society.