Academy of Pacesetting States
Summer Session, Princeton, 2009
Faculty Biographies
BERNADETTE ANDERSON serves as ADI’s Director of Institutional Advancement. She is responsible for furthering the mission of ADI by initiating new innovative ideas. Ms. Anderson has been extensively involved in school improvement and charter schools. She has more than 12 years of experience as a professional development specialist in school-based instructional improvement and parent education, and has led professional development for ADI since 2000. She also coordinates statewide professional development for the Illinois State Board of Education Summer Bridges Reading Camp (PreK–6) for more than 100 professional development providers representing over 50 school districts, and she also taught for three years in the Reading Camp. For more than nine years, she orchestrated research-based professional development programming for East St. Louis schools, surrounding school districts in Illinois metro-east area, other Illinois communities, and other SEA’s. She manages one of four state-funded pilot parent-engagement projects in Illinois along with five 21st Century Community Learning Centers. She also served eight years as a Comprehensive School Reform Coach for CentervilleElementary School in Cahokia, IL. She provided early childhood education for three years while working on the Early Head Start Research Program (Comprehensive Child Development Program) and is currently involved with Even Start Programs.
Ms. Anderson also served on the Board of Directors for the Metro-East Consortium for Child Advocacy (MECCA) for seven years. MECCA is a collaborative venture among several Illinois school districts to implement a professional development system focused on continuous learning for educators and parents to improve teaching, learning, and school management. Additional partners were St. Clair Regional Office of Education and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She also serves on the Illinois State Board of Education Committee of Practitioners, PBIS Leadership Team, and various Community/State Educational Task Forces. She also has professional experience in social work. She is a strong advocate for children, which is how she became involved in education as a highly involved parent serving in a variety of parent leadership roles in her own children’s schools. She is a graduate from the University of Idaho with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Sociology. She has traveled to seven countries and 43 states, which has provided her a vast amount of exposure to various cultures.
DANA BRINSON is a consultant with Public Impact. She has conducted research and analysis on a wide variety of education issues, including educational philanthropy, school improvement and turnarounds, disconnected youth, talent assessment and selection, and charter schools. Ms. Brinson conducts critical fact-finding through interviews, literature reviews, site visits, and other qualitative methods. She also serves as dissemination coordinator for Public Impact. Ms. Brinson previously worked as a special educator at a Boston-area public school for teens with behavioral and emotional challenges and learning disabilities. Ms. Brinson is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of West VirginiaUniversity and holds a masters degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ms. Brinson has consulted with philanthropic foundations to evaluate grantee results, develop effective approaches to grant making, and foster greater involvement by corporate and private foundations in educational philanthropy. She built on Public Impact’s prior work to write Corporations, Chambers, and Charters: How Businesses Can Support High-Quality Public Charter Schools for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce. Ms. Brinson’s research on school improvement and turnaround issues has focused on successful leader actions, the school turnaround process, leadership selection and development, and school restructuring efforts. In School Turnarounds: Actions and Results, Ms. Brinson co-authored vignettes of school turnarounds for the Center on Innovation and Improvement. Ms. Brinson has also conducted extensive charter school-related work for state and federal departments of education and other organizations. This work has centered on supporting charter school quality, charter authorizing, charter school replication, and special education in charter schools. She co-authored Public Impact’s 2007 report to the North Carolina Blue Ribbon Commission on Charter Schools to help the Board of Education amend the state’s charter school policies. Ms. Brinson also developed A Commitment to Quality: National Charter School Policy Forum Report for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement.
GORDON CAWELTI has served as Senior Research Associate for the Educational Research Service in Arlington, Virginia, since 1992, where he is conducting research on various approaches to improving student achievement. Until 2005, he also served as Director of The Achievement Consortium, which was sponsored by the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS) at Temple University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, served as a science teacher and a principal in two high schools, and served as Executive Director of the North Central Association in Chicago. From 1969–1973 he served as superintendent of the 80,000-student Tulsa Public Schools where he was involved in developing several innovative schools, undertook an extensive school construction program, and provided leadership in the school desegregation process which eliminated all racially isolated schools. In Washington he served for 19 years as Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. During that time, ASCD grew from 12,000 to 155,000 members, established affiliates in all 50 states and in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Canada, and the Caribbean. ASCD became a leader in professional development activity by providing workshops around the world each year and producing videotapes used extensively for training purposes. He directed several consortia of schools engaged in the process of planning for the future. He has served as a management consultant to many schools districts in the areas of instructional leadership, school restructuring, and improving student achievement, and has provided training in several countries in the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. He is currently a member of the Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII) Scientific Council.
He has published over 150 articles and books on school leadership and curriculum, including a 1965 study of innovations in some 6,000 high schools. He completed a major research project in 1994 on the elements of restructuring being undertaken by the nation’s high schools, and more recently published Effects of High School Restructuring: Ten Schools at Work which identified the changes that contribute most to improved student achievement. He was editor of the Handbook of Research on Improving Student Achievement, a project supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and sponsored by the ERS. This best-selling handbook is now being used by thousands of teachers across the country to learn about using research-based teaching practices in their field. More recent research has focused on high-performing school districts whose substantial gains in student achievement were reported in High Student Achievement: How Six School Districts Changed into High Performance Systems.
CAROL CHELEMER retired from the U.S. Department of Education in 2006 after 31 years. During that time she was a program officer for several ESEA programs, including Title 1, Safe and Drug-Free Schools (as a branch chief) and, just prior to retirement, the Comprehensive Centers Program (program leader). She also worked in the Planning & Evaluation Service where she managed national program evaluations in the areas of compensatory education and comprehensive school reform.
Ms. Chelemer’s 10-year service in the Institute of Education Sciences included leadership of the Regional Educational Laboratory Program and management responsibilities at the NationalCenter for Education Statistics. Her areas of expertise include: program administration and evaluation, and school reform. She received her A.B. in history and mathematics from the University of Michigan and a secondary teaching credential from California State University–Hayward. She currently consults with the Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII) to develop programs and products regarding statewide systems of support and school improvement.
SUSAN HANEShas extensive experience in public education, including information management services, assessment development, research, program evaluation, and high school mathematics teaching. Her experience includes 12 years in the Georgia Department of Education in assessment development, director of statistical services and electronic data collection for statewide systems, and program evaluation. Dr. Hanes has worked in local school systems as the director of assessment, research and evaluation. She was the Director of Standards and Research for the Georgia Office of Education Accountability. She has conducted consulting services for the IES Longitudinal Data System Grants, technical assistance for the Performance Based Data Management Initiative (PBDMI), and consulting services and site visits with the Center for Education Leadership and Technology and CCSSO for the Decision Support Architecture Consortium. She is a consultant for the Center on Innovation and Improvement. She has served as a peer reviewer for the US Department of Education for Accountability Reviews and State Assessment System reviews since 1999 and has been a member of Title I State Monitoring teams. She has worked on committees for the CCSSO and National Center for Education Statistics including Chair, Implementation Task Force – National Forum for Education Statistics, 1990-1991; Task Force on Confidentiality, National Center for Education Statistics – Member, 1994-95; and Chair, Education Information Advisory Committee for the Council of Chief State School Officers, 1994-1995.
MARY KEITH. As a life long learner and educator Mary Keith, a doctoral candidate at the University of Louisville, believes that building capacity within the instructional community will inevitably impact student achievement. Mary's professional endeavors have provided opportunities for her to serve as teacher, reading specialist, guidance counselor and Highly Skilled Educator for the Kentucky Department of Education. Her most recent professional achievement has been as school principal for the JeffersonCountyPublic School system. During that time Mary served on the Principals Advisory Council for the State Commissioner. Mary has consistently used state reform initiatives to successfully impact student achievement in low performing schools. It is her goal to continue to share the knowledge she has gained while working with school reform. It is her hope to provide information and services that will foster positive learning experiences for all students.
BARBARA E. KENNEDY is currently an adjunct professor at AsburyCollege near Lexington, Kentucky. She recently served as Director of Scholastic Assistance for the Kentucky Department of Education where she supervised school improvement initiatives such as scholastic audits, Commonwealth School Improvement Funds, and the Highly Skilled Educator Program. She has successfully facilitated district level reform through a direct state assistance team initiative. As a former Kentucky Highly Skilled Educator, Ms. Kennedy has extensive first hand experience in effectual school reform initiatives at the school and classroom levels as well. She has served as a district level administrator in charge of Federal programs such as No Child Left Behind. She is a former middle school guidance counselor and classroom teacher. In addition to Bachelors, Masters, Rank I, and Education Specialist Degrees from MoreheadStateUniversity, she currently holds numerous K-12 certifications including instructional supervision, school leadership and special education administration.
LISA KINNAMAN is currently serving as the Idaho State School Improvement Coordinator, a partnership between the Idaho State Department of Education and the Boise State University Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies. Dr. Kinnaman previously worked as an education professor at NorthwestNazareneUniversity, as well as a History and Sheltered Instruction teacher at CapitalHigh School in the BoiseSchool District. Dr. Kinnaman has participated in various projects, trainings, and consultations at the state, district, and local levels on topics including state standards, standardized assessments, sheltered instruction, and strategies that promote learning and achievement for all students.
This past year she has worked to develop and implement the Idaho Building Capacity project, a cornerstone of Idaho’s Statewide System of Support designed to provide frequent and meaningful technical assistance to schools and districts in needs improvement status. She finds it a great privilege to work with amazing educators around the state who are hard at work in the continuous school improvement cycle, striving together to increase student learning and achievement.
C. THOMAS KERINS serves as the Associate Director for Program Development for the Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII), where he has specialized in statewide systems of support, co-authoring case studies on five states. He holds a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in education research from LoyolaUniversity. He has held positions including the State Director of Testing for Illinois; Assistant Superintendent for School Improvement and Assessment for the Illinois State Board of Education; and Assistant Superintendent for School Improvement, Standards, and Assessment for the SpringfieldSchool District. In Illinois, he was Assistant Superintendent for District 186, and he was a member of the General Supervision Enhancement Grant (GSEG) Task Force, participating in all Task Force meetings, numerous meetings with ISBE staff, and several site visits to schools, districts and cooperatives around the state; he actively participated in all phases of the project and was especially instrumental in the assessment of local data quality and the development of the Annual State Report on Special Education Performance and the LRE Special Education Profile. He is an adjunct professor for the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a much-sought-after consultant with over 30 years in the field of education. Besides serving in a variety of roles at both state and local levels, he has held several honorary positions, is a prolific writer for various journals, and is a frequent presenter at conferences and symposiums.
Dr. Kerins has chaired the Committee on Evaluation and Information Systems for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), is a member of the No Child Left Behind Advisory Panel evaluating enhanced assessment proposals from the states, and serves on the Chicago School Foundation Academic Advisory Council. He has been a consultant to WestEd (the U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Science Western Regional Education Laboratory), the Chicago Public Schools, and the state departments of education in Indiana, Nevada, and South Carolina.
JULIE KOWAL is a senior consultant with Public Impact. Her work addresses challenging policy and management issues in education, including compensation, teacher quality, and other human capital topics; and turnarounds, chartering, and school contracting. Ms. Kowal both conducts and leads teams to produce research and analysis, and her work often includes seeking out critical lessons from other sectors. She also serves as editor for other Public Impact publications. An alumna of AmeriCorps NCCC and Public Allies DC, Ms. Kowal earned her law degree with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her recent work focuses on the critical role of human capital in education, including cross-sector solutions for attracting teachers to hard-to-staff positions and studies of private and charter school teacher compensation for the Center for American Progress; studies of innovative teacher and principal preparation programs; and cross-sector research for the National Governors Association’s Improving Teaching through Pay for Contribution. Ms. Kowal helped guide the development of a statewide agenda for improving teacher quality in Indiana, and she served as an expert panelist for a national initiative to retain generation Y teachers. Her recent work on school restructuring includes cross-sector studies of successful turnarounds, vignettes of school turnarounds, guidance for districts on using the chartering and contracting restructuring options under No Child Left Behind, and case studies of schools that have restructured under NCLB. Ms. Kowal recently co-conducted an examination of the school turnaround initiative in Chicago Public Schools and an evaluation of the School Turnaround Specialist Program at the University of Virginia. She is a featured expert on school turnarounds for the U.S. Department of Education’s Doing What Works website, and has led several workshops with principals and district and state officials on successful turnarounds.
LINDSAY KREY is currently a principal at Holabird Academy, a Baltimore City Public School located in the O’Donnell Heights neighborhood of southeast Baltimore. She was trained for the principalship by New Leaders for New schools after serving as a Resident Principal, reading coordinator, and teacher in the Baltimore City School System. She began her teaching career in New Orleans Public Schools as a Teach for America corps member. She spent four summers training new teachers through Teach For America’s intensive Summer Institute both in the Bronx, NY and Philadelphia, PA. She has an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Mind, Brain, and Education, and a B.A. from the University of Chicago in Public Policy, with a concentration in Urban Studies, graduating with honors. She is a proud product of the BaltimoreCity, Chicago, and PhiladelphiaPublic School systems and will be a lifelong advocate for public schools.