Urban OutfittersProfessional Program Graduates Change the Look of Bay Area’s Underserved Schools

PACEsetters at 25

connect university of california, berkeley • graduate school of Education

ed wintEr 2008

Photo: David Schmitz

From the Dean

DeanP. David Pearson

Associate Dean for Academic AffairsFrank C. Worrell

Acting Associate Dean for Professional ProgramsRichard Sterling

Head Graduate AdviserSarah W. Freedman

Assistant Dean for AdministrationLisa Kala

GSE Advisory BoardAl AdamsStacey BellMary Catherine BirgeneauMary Jane BrintonJerry CorazzaPat CrossPauline FaccianoLily Wong FillmoreNed FlandersChad GraffMiranda Heller, Chair

Ellen HersheyGary HoachlanderLucinda Lee KatzCarol LiuKerri LubinPhilip LumJoyce NgAlceste T. PappasP. David PearsonBrian RogersCha Sanders

Gra

duate

Sch

ool

of

Educa

tion

Welcome to the third issue of Connected. We hope you will enjoy learning about

the many facets of our work and the many people who shape it.

The School of Education makes a profound difference in Bay Area urban schools,

in part because of our close location to them. But what really paves the way is our

commitment and conviction to equitable schools.

Our cover article, “Urban Oufitters,” affirms that commitment by profiling the

tireless efforts of many of our alumni in our most needy local schools. Their leader-

ship for a better future for students is testimony to the design and impact of our

professional programs.

As an alumna and educator who is quoted in the article says, “Whether they are

teachers or administrators, they see working in schools as a profession, not just

a stepping stone.” I concur that that distinction is one of many that sets them

apart.

In a shaky economy, GSE’s aspiring educators need financial support in order to complete their degrees

and receive their certification as teachers and school leaders. My highest priority for the ambitious capital

campaign announced this fall by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau is to create endowments that will support

GSE students far into the future.

The value of your gift to education is practically limitless – it is a sure investment in the future of our

schools, students and democracy.

I hope you will take a moment to review our fundraising case statement online at http://gse.berkeley.edu/

admin/extrel or request a paper copy from our Development Office. If you can, please use the enclosed

envelope to send a tax-deductible gift in support of our scholarship program.

Thank you for your consideration, and I wish you a happy holiday season!

P. David Pearson Dean and Professor ppearson@berkeley.edu

Anthony M. SmithCarolyn SparksRichard SterlingKaren TeelWilliam TibbeyMaryEllen VogtLynn WendellVic Willits Mike WoodHeather McCracken Wu

Winter 2008 1

connectedFeatures14 PACEsetters at 25

Research Center Celebrates a Quarter Century as Leader in Legislative Policy AnalysisBy Steven Cohen

16 Urban OutfittersProfessional Program Graduates Change the Look of Bay Area’s Underserved Schools

Profiles: Kyla Johnson-trammell, Jake Disston, erica Ramirez, Patricia newsome, Zareen Poonen LevienBy Steven Cohen

Departments2 School News

Spotlight: education Minor has Major Impact

temple Wins Distinguished Service Award

Cal teach Attracting Committed, Diverse Undergraduates

Center for Urban School Leader-ship Moves Forward with new Director, Directions

All Signs Point Up for CAL Prep

Race, Culture and equity Speaker Series Inspires Fresh thinking

In Brief:tillery Institute

Kidnet

Commencement

CReDe

national Writing Project

8 FacultySpotlight: Marcia Linn

new Faces: Lisa García Bedolla, na’ilah nasir, Janelle Scott, tina trujillo

honors

Publications

Appointments

Grants

12 StudentsSpotlight: Usree Bhattacharya

Students Launch Academic Journal

honors

28 AlumniSpotlight: Jennifer Russell

Class notes

34 FriendsSpotlight: PLI Cohort 8 Supports new endowed Scholarship Fund

Carolyn Sparks’ touch of Class

Spring Scholarship tea Brews Gratitude

CAL Prep Relocates

Major Grants Fund GSe’s Work in Urban Professional Development

Donors

Cover: GSE professional program alumni are flourishing at Oakland’s

Learning Without Limits School.

Back cover: Family night at Oakland’s Learning Without Limits School

Photos: Peg Skorpinski

connectedWinter 2008 • volume 3

Connected is published annually by the University of California, Berkeley,Graduate School of Education for alumni and friends.

Editor/Writer: Steven Cohen

Graphic Design: Grace Engels, Kat Jones

Contributing Writers: Joseph Bui, Zack Rogow

Proofreader: Joyce Burks

Editorial Board: Christine Cziko, Heather McCracken Wu, David Pearson, Della Peretti, Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, Janine Sheldon

Contributing Photographers: Steven Cohen, Peg Skorpinski, David Schmitz, Bijan Yashar, José Zavaleta

Printer: UC Printing Service Printed on recycled content paper

Connected

University of California Graduate School of Education 3627 Tolman Hall #1670 Berkeley, CA 94720-1670

Phone: 510/643-9784 E-mail: ext_rel@berkeley.edu Fax: 510/643-2006 Web: gse.berkeley.edu

To subscribe to gsE-news and receive Connected and the gsE-bulletin by e-mail, please visit gse.berkeley.edu/ admin/communications/subscribe.html

©2008 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

16From left, Developmental Teacher Education graduates Samara Ripps, Malana Willis, Olivia Sanders, Manuel Herrera and Daniel Seward gather in front of Learning Without Limits’ vision statement. Photo: Steven Cohen

2 connected2 connected

schoolnews

GSE’s popular undergraduate minor and courses in educa-

tion continue to attract a growing number of undergraduates,

with more than 160 active declared minors. One of the largest

minors on campus, it has attracted disproportionately more

students of color than their numbers on campus would predict.

But where do education minors — 1,600 since the program

started in 1990 — go from there? The short answer is that they

make a profound difference in the field of education. A snapshot

of some recent education minor students tells part of the story:

Edd Taylor, an African-American professor at Northwest-

ern University, was the inspiring 2008 GSE Commence-

ment speaker. He says that the core course in the Minor,

Current Issues in Education (EDUC 190), influenced his career

trajectory change from law to education.

Amanda Kruger, a recent graduate of the Principal

Leadership Institute, is now principal of Bay Area School

of Enterprise (BASE) High School, a charter school in

Alameda. For a project in her education minor classes,

Kruger led a group of high school students and teachers

that founded the school — perhaps the first public school

in the nation initiated by and governed in significant part

by the students themselves.

Kenzo Sung completed his Ph.D. in POME in 2008 after

graduating from Harvard. As an undergraduate minor, he

initiated Project College Bound in 1996, an innovative mentor-

ship and tutoring program serving disadvantaged Asian

Pacific American Youth from Berkeley’s public schools. The

project continues today coordinated by Hong Doan, who

attends UC Berkeley because of the inspiration and sup-

port that she received as a member of the group when she

was in middle school.

Tony Smith, who received his Master’s in 1993 and Ph.D. in

2002 from the School of Education, was appointed Deputy

Superintendent for Instruction, Innovation and Social

Justice for San Francisco Unified School District last year.

Smith, a former Cal football player, was formerly superin-

tendent of Emery Unified, where he led the 800-student

district out of a state takeover.

Other education minor students, like Jennifer Goldstein,

who received her Ph.D. from Stanford’s School of Education and

is now an assistant professor at Baruch College, say that the

education minor solidified aspirations.

“As an undergraduate I believed theoretically in the link be-

tween public education and democracy,” says Goldstein, “but

the ability to take coursework in education helped me realize

that on a very practical level I had found a home and a field.”

While a number of education minors such as Goldstein

have gone on to leading graduate schools of education in both

advanced degree programs and credential/masters’ programs,

Professor Emeritus John Hurst, who established the program

in 1990, says that the main purpose of the minor is “to enable

students to systematically examine education and to begin to

understand how it shapes, and is shaped by society.

“They’re exposed to a wide array of career possibilities in the

field of education,” says Hurst, “and that’s why they have made

such a great impact in the field, but the minor is not a pre-

professional program; it’s a serious inquiry into one of societies

most critical institutions.”

Spotlight

education Minor Sports Major Accomplishments

environmental education students participate in a consensus orienteering exercise on a field trip to Jug handle Creek along the Mendocino Coast.

Winter 2008 3

temple Wins Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award

GSE Assistant Dean for Administration Frankie Temple has

received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award, one of only

two given in 2008.

Dean P. David Pearson presented the award, which recognizes

outstanding service, other than teaching or research, in a UC Berkeley

school, college or department, to Temple at the first GSE school-wide

meeting of the year in September.

Temple has served the School of Education since 1971, when she worked

with the late Professor Nadine Lambert for the School Psychology program.

She was named assistant dean in 2000 after serving as director of adminis-

tration since 1992, and the School’s management services officer for several

years before that.

“Frankie has always been respected and esteemed for her competence,

fairness and collegiality,” said Pearson. “She is without doubt the go-to person

in the School, and she knows the majority of our students by name.”

Said Professor Sarah Freedman: “In all my years of working with her,

there has never been a problem within her area of responsibility she could

not solve; she always takes responsibility and sees to it that the work gets

done.”

Temple, who received the Outstanding Staff Award in 1992, has worked

directly with four deans during her tenure: Bernie Gifford, Bill Rohwer,

Gene García and Pearson. In addition, she worked with acting dean Geraldine

Clifford and chairman Jim Guthrie.

“Every aspect of Ms. Temple’s work is infused with excellence,” said

García, who worked with Temple from 1995 through 2001.

While officially retired as of last June, Temple is on recall appointment as

an administrative advisor to Pearson. She is mentoring her successor in the

Dean’s Office, Lisa Kala, and Kala says she looks forward to the challenge of

“living up to the gold standard that Frankie has set.”

Temple says she is enjoying semi-retirement and the extra time it gives

her to spend with her two grandsons.

weducators tie the Knot

Andy Maul (Ph.D., Qualitative, Methods and evaluation ‘08) and Diana Arya (Ph.D. Language and Literacy, Society and Culture expected ‘09) married on June 14, 2008 at the UC Botanical Garden. the couple met when Maul was Arya’s GSI in Data Analysis I and II.

Dean Pearson with temple after the award announcement

Six Degrees of Separation

Barack obama with his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham during a 1982 visit to new york, where obama was attending Columbia. Stanley’s brother, Ralph emerson Dunham, received his ed.D. from UC Berkeley’s School of education in 1950. no doubt, you’re wondering why none of us were invited to the Inaugural Ball.

All in the Family?

Photo: José Zavaleta

4 connected4 connected

schoolnews

All Signs Point Up for CAL PrepCalifornia College Preparatory Academy (CAL Prep) students had another great year.

Their hard work, and that of their teachers, led to solid gains on the California Standards

Tests for the second year in a row — increasing the school’s API 51 points from 725 last year

to 771. In its first year of testing (2006), CAL Prep’s API was 648.

In 2008, math proficiency doubled to 47.4 percent from 23.7 percent in 2006. A total of 43

percent of CAL Prep students scored “proficient” or “advanced” in English Language Arts, up

from 23.7 percent in 2006. The achievement gap is narrowing for many CAL Prep students.

Equally important, CAL Prep students are benefiting from practical, research-based

innovations; courses taught by UC Berkeley and Berkeley City College faculty; no-cost

intervention and enrichment programs; and intensive academic, social and emotional

support from adults, including 30 UC Berkeley undergraduates, to help them build the

habits needed for success in higher education. A fully staffed, campuswide study hall at the

end of the school day allows students to get help and a jump on their homework. Then they

can join in a rich set of after-school activities, including drama, visual arts, cooking, sports,

music production and dance.

In addition to CAL Prep’s new facility at the former St. Joseph the Worker parochial

school building in Berkeley and temporary parting from the sixth graders (see related story,

page 36), students encountered two more changes at the beginning of the school year.

Megan Reed, last year’s dean of students, was promoted to principal, and Maia Correal is

filling the dean’s role.

“The students respond extraordinarily well to Megan,” said GSE Dean David Pearson.

“They know she cares about every one of them and is deeply committed to their academic

and personal success. She has the educator’s gift of inspiring each student to be the best he

or she can be, and the atmosphere at the school this year is really exciting.”

CAL Prep continues to enjoy broad support from UC Berkeley. Since 2003, a multidis-

ciplinary faculty oversight committee has guided all activities to co-construct the school

from the ground up with Aspire Public Schools, California’s first charter management orga-

nization. With the leadership of the Office of Equity and Inclusion and the Graduate School

of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded early college model is being replicated at

other Aspire schools and has promising implications for other multicultural school set-

tings throughout California.

CAL Prep is open to all students and families, with preference given to students who

face barriers to college going. Currently serving 200 students in grades 7–10, the school will

add a grade each year, reaching grade 12 in 2010–11.

The student body is 62 percent African American

and 35 percent Latino, 35 percent are English

Language Learners, and 64 percent are eligible for

free or reduced lunch.Megan Reed is CAL Prep’s new principal.

Students experienced the beach during a fall field trip to Marin headlands.

Cal teach Attracting Committed, Diverse Undergraduates

Cal teach, a new campuswide program that encourages, prepares and supports mathemat-ics, science and engineering majors to become middle or high school math and science teachers, is gaining momentum in its fourth year.

the partnership with the College of Letters & Sci-ence, College of engineering, Graduate School of education and Lawrence hall of Science, offers several courses for students interested in teaching including engineering in K-12 Math and Science Learning. GSe’s education minor (see page 2) is highly recommended as part of the Cal teach program.

Cal teach students take coursework to examine and develop subject matter-specific curriculum, pedagogies and assessment methodologies along with the coursework in their majors. Graduate Student Instructor Rick Ayers teaches a required course in year 2 of the program, “teaching Mathematics and Science: A Focus on equity and Urban Schools,” which serves as an equity- focused introduction to teaching and learning mathematics and science in urban schools.

“this is the most diverse undergraduate class I’ve seen at UC Berkeley,” says Ayers, a GSe doctoral candidate in Language and Literacy, Society and Culture (LLSC). “they have overcome great ob-stacles to get to Berkeley, often on at least partial scholarship, and they want to go into teaching. they’re very caring and thoughtful students who have decided to give back.”

Additionally, Xiaoxia newton, an assistant professor in PoMe, is a principal investigator for Cal teach working on evaluation; and Assistant Professor Dor Abrahamson and Professor Alan Schoenfeld are creating a new course, “Problem Solving as an Approach to teaching and Learn-ing in Mathematics and Science,” that will debut in the spring semester.

GSI Rick Ayers, left, has been impressed with his Cal teach students.

Winter 2008 5

GSE’s Race, Culture and Equity Initiative (RCEI), inau-

gurated last spring to provide a forum for faculty, staff and

students to address race and racism in education and society,

presented six provocative speakers in 2008: Charles Mills, Pru-

dence Carter, Bryan Brayboy, Na’ilah Nasir, Michael Omi and

Christine Sleeter.

“GSE must exert leadership and fresh thinking in our

schools to lift low-achieving students,” says Professor Bruce

Fuller, who co-chairs the initiative planning committee with

Associate Professor Patricia Baquedano-López. “The Initiative

spurs new thinking on how we can serve children of color and

the schools that serve them through our research and service to

practitioners.”

Mills made two public presentations on November 7. A

morning lecture in Tolman Hall entitled, “White Ignorance

and the Racial Contract,” was followed by a lunch session with

faculty. That evening, Mills spoke on “Exploring the Connec-

tions between the Racial Contract and Education” at Berkeley

High’s Little Theater, a fundraiser for the Principal Leadership

Institute at the Center for Urban School Leadership.

Mills, a professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at

Northwestern, works in the general area of social and political

philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as cen-

tered on class, gender and race. His first book, The Racial Contract,

won a Myers Outstanding Book Award for the study of bigotry

and human rights in North America. It has been adopted wide-

ly in college courses across the United States. His most recent

book Contract and Domination, co-written with Carole Pateman,

explores the intersection of racism and feminism.

The RCEI series began in January when a crowd of more

than 300 visited UC Berkeley’s Alumni House to hear Associate

Professor of Ethnic Studies Michael Omi discuss the inherent

contradictions of a colorblind society. One week later, CSU-

Monterey Professor Emerita Christine Sleeter addressed ways

in which racism becomes institutionalized in education and

what can be done about it.

In October, Stanford’s Prudence Carter gave a public talk

with follow-up conversations that compared race dynamics in

mixed-race high schools in the U.S. and South Africa, and dem-

onstrated that students with “cultural flexibility” confidently

navigate school culture by avoiding rigid racial associations

concerning achievement.

“Professor Carter’s interaction with us was decisively

helpful,” says Assistant Professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, one of the

faculty organizers of RCEI. “The comparative nature of her

work opened lines of dialogue about race in the U.S., shedding

light on race relations as a social rather than natural process.”

The speaker series continued November 19 when Bryan

Brayboy from the University of Alaska and Arizona State

University, spoke on “White Ignorance and the Racial Context.”

Na’ilah Nasir, a new associate professor in GSE and African

American Studies (see page 10), capped off the series for the

year on November 21 with a lecture on how students’ contexts

— bounded by race and culture — shape the daily activities in

which they learn.

Race, Culture and equity Speaker Series inspires Fresh thinking

Above, from left, Charles Mills spoke at two GSe events in november. Michael omi and Christine Sleeter kicked off the speaker series in January.Megan Reed

is CAL Prep’s new principal.

Photos: Steven Cohen

6 connected6 connected

schoolnews

The Center for Urban School Leadership (CUSL) has acceler-

ated its program and professional development capabilities by

naming Daphannie Stephens as its new director.

As the first step in a strategic planning process, Stephens, a

graduate of the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) Cohort 6,

is leading a series of retreats with five faculty and program di-

rectors to evaluate the Center’s suite of offerings to ensure that

they provide a clear, coherent pathway founded on common

principles and values.

“It’s exciting to help the Center take the next critical step

as an organization,” says Stephens, who earned

her undergraduate degree in Social Welfare

from UC Berkeley. “The critical foundation

of all our programs is a theory of self-directed

adult learning that is surprisingly absent from

most professional development experienced by

urban school leaders, which too often empha-

sizes compliance.”

CUSL has been providing professional de-

velopment to all elementary and middle school

principals and assistant principals in San Fran-

cisco Unified School District for the past three

years. As an example of the model of the adult

learning embraced across all Center programs,

10 different self-selected groups of elementary

and K-8 principals have selected a topic for

intensive group study or action research for the current school

year. These topics include issues of English Language Learners

in predominantly Latino and Chinese schools, such as grade

placement and social integration of newcomers; identifica-

tion of and strategies for dealing with post-traumatic stress

syndrome in children; and difficult performance conversations.

Research activities will include experiences designed to build

trust among colleagues, produce outcomes useful to the par-

ticipants and align with their shared values.

“CUSL programs have always attempted to avoid the ‘sage

on stage,’” says PLI Academic Coordinator Lynda Tredway. “I

always tell my students, ‘If I talk for more than 10 minutes, stop

me.’ “

“At the same time that we encourage our leaders’ individual

curiosity and creativity,” says Stephens, “we work closely with

them to ensure that their action research is aligned with the

districts’ professional development goals

and standards for leadership competence.”

Last spring’s BRAVO Project is another

example of powerful adult learning in the

Principal Leadership Institute, according to

Tredway. PLI Cohort 8 had the opportunity

to work intensively with local artists on a

visual or performing arts project inspired

by the history of racism and school segrega-

tion in California. Tredway says that the

students drew on their own experiences and

worked collaboratively to follow and express

their artistic interests.

“It takes empathy to be vulnerable; it

takes courage to create something new, and

it takes perseverance to give form to impor-

tant beliefs, ideas and questions,” says Tredway. “These are

characteristics found in the best artists and leaders.”

Center for Urban School Leadership Moves Forward with new Director, Directions

the Center for Urban School Leadership Programs

Aspiring Administrators Seminars

Coaching for equity

Leadership Studio

Leadership Support

Principal Leadership Institute

Professional Development for equity

Research into Practice Institute

Above, from left: newly appointed CUSL Director Daphannie Stephens;Beatboxer Carlos Aguirre aka Infinite and other leading Bay Area artists worked with Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) Cohort 8 credential candidates in June in the BRAvo! Project and performed at PLI’s november fundraiser with Charles Mills (see page 5) at Berkeley high School.

Winter 2008 7

in BriefThe Fourth Annual Dale tillery Institute for Community College Leadership was held

August 4-6 at UC Berkeley’s Faculty Club and focused on the transition from high school to

college. Led by Professor Norton Grubb and Foothill College President Emerita Bernadine

Chuck Fong, 10 teams of community college faculty and administrators from across the

state heard presentations on promising programs from around the country and worked on

plans to be implemented at their colleges in the academic year ahead. Presenters included

Stanford University Professor Emeritus Michael Kirst; John Garvey, dean of the Teacher

Academy and Collaborative Programs, City University of New York; and Melinda Karp and

Davis Jenkins fromTeachers College, Columbia University. Participants voted Los Medanos

Community College and Santiago Canyon College as developing the best work plans.

Professor Glynda Hull’s Kidnet project established networks with youth in West Oak-

land, South Africa and India during its first year in 2007. It began its second year with a

$500,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation to study the socio-cultural, developmental and

educational implications of engaging youth around the world in Internet-enabled social

networking. For the next three years of the project, the Kidnet team will operate its sites

and study the decision-making, interpersonal and intercultural negotiation, and knowl-

edge construction that this online community reveals over time.

A total of 114 graduating students received diplomas and inspiration at the Graduate School of education’s commencement exercises May 17 in Zellerbach Hall. Keynote

speaker Edd Taylor, who earned his Ph.D. from the School of Education in 2005; master’s/cre-

dential program speaker Sarah Wright; and doctoral program speaker Linda Platas struck a

thematic chord for educational equity and spoke passionately for educating all children.

A What Works Clearinghouse study shows that the Center for Research on educa-tion, Diversity & excellence (CREDE) developed program tops the field in elementary

education for English-Language Learners. CREDE was ranked first in reading achievement

and second in English language development by the Clearinghouse, which is administered

by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) within the U.S. Department of Education. The

Clearinghouse evaluated 73 studies of 32 programs focused on improving English language

literacy and/or academic achievement of elementary school students who are English Lan-

guage Learners. Only 12 programs met the WWC evidence standards.

The national Writing Project (NWP) has joined with Reading is Fundamental and the

College Board to publish a new book, Our Book By Us!/Nuestro Libro ¡Hecho Por Nosotros! which

provides parents and caregivers a resource in English and Spanish that engages young

children in reading and writing to support their early literacy development. The new book

is available from the NWP website (www.nwp.org), which recently won a gold EXCEL award

for “Editorial Content” from the Society of National Association Publications.

Super storyteller Joel ben Izzy dazzled his audience at the 2008 Celebration of Children’s Literature. the popular community event returns on Cal Day, April 18.Photo: Steven Cohen

Los Medanos College team members with Karl Pister, chair of the California Council on Science and technology, at the tillery Institute in August.Photo: Peg Skorpinski

UCLA Psychology Professor James Stigler, director of the third International Mathematics and Science Study (tIMSS) video Study, was one of many high-profile speakers who gave presentations at the School of education this year.Photo: Steven Cohen

8 connected

Photo: David Schmitz

8 connected

faculty

Casual observers may have missed the fact that Marcia Linn,

GSE’s calm professor, has brewed a quiet storm of inspiring

accomplishments of late.

In a little more than a year, she was elected to the National

Academy of Education; co-authored an attention-grabbing study

showing no difference in math performance between boys and

girls, as well as a book on designing innovative science education

curriculum; and landed two $3 million National Science Founda-

tion (NSF) grants to continue her work in the field of technology-

enhanced learning, as well as a smaller one to design an Advanced

Placement computer science course for UC College Prep.

Clearly, Linn doesn’t plan to bask in the limelight.

That’s because the modest pioneer who grew up in

Whittier has maintained her focus on improving the

quality of science and mathematics instruction and

learning for all students, including the many she has

mentored in the Graduate School of Education.

“That’s where I see all this work coming together,” says

Linn, who started doing instructional design at UC Berkeley’s

Lawrence Hall of Science in the ’70s before becoming a GSE

professor a decade later.

“The most important thing we can do is offer a sound

education in important mathematics and science topics to

all learners and give everyone the opportunity to succeed,”

she says. “This is an area where a lot of people complain that

their courses are irrelevant to their lives or boring or difficult

to follow. And that isn’t necessary. I think our materials prove

that students can learn complicated material, have engaging

experiences with science, and not only become competent but

be able to use their ideas in the next course and in their lives.”

Linn’s research and work supports the use of technology

at any age through a variety of learning materials on any topic

— from anthropology to zoology. Her most recent NSF grants

— Cumulative Learning Using Embedded Assessment Results

(CLEAR), which focuses on using assessment of relevant

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

content to improve K–12 teaching and learning; and Logging

Opportunities in Online Programs for Science (LOOPS), which

uses technology to help teachers support inquiry learning in

middle school science classes — build on her groundbreaking

work with a wide array of collaborators to improve science

instruction through TELS (the Center for Technology

Enhanced Learning in Science).

The early stages of Linn’s cyberworld date back to the ’60s,

when as a Stanford undergraduate she took computer science

courses and worked in a research group with noted Philosophy

Professor Pat Suppes, who was examining technology and edu-

cation using mainframe computers.

By 1984, when Apple was introducing its Apple IIe comput-

ers into classrooms, Linn had already developed a vision of how

the computer might be used to enhance student learning and

won an Apple Wheels for the Mind grant to get started. Nearly

a quarter-century later, and with ongoing NSF support, thou-

sands of teachers and students around the world use web-based

inquiry science curricular modules she helped develop here at

UC Berkeley (available for free at wise.berkeley.edu).

And Linn’s team continues to investigate ways to make

them better.

“Our materials prove that students can learn complicated material, have engaging experiences with science, and not only become competent but be able to use their ideas in the next course and in their lives.”

Spotlight

Marcia Linn Perfect Storm

Winter 2008 9

HONORS

Assistant Professor Cynthia Coburn and Adjunct

Professor Elfrieda Hiebert received awards from the

International Reading Association.

Assistant Professor Randi Engle won a campus-

wide Hellman Family Faculty Fund Award to

support her transfer-of-learning research. She

also gave the plenary address at UC Berkeley’s GSI

orientation.

Professor Norton Grubb studied the vocational

education system in German-speaking Switzerland

for the Organization for Economic Co-operation

and Development.

Professor Marcia Linn (see page 8) gave the keynote

talk on Science, Technology and Policy at the

National Association for Research in Science Teach-

ing in March, and testified on girls and Science,

Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

careers before Congress in July.

Professor Judith Warren Little received the Frank

Klassen Award for Leadership and Scholarly Con-

tributions in Teacher Education at the World As-

sembly of the International Council on Education

for Teaching in Braga, Portugal, where she also gave

the invited keynote address.

Associate Professor Jabari Mahiri, Visiting As-

sistant Professor Zeus Leonardo and Little were

honored for their contributions to the American

Educational Research Association (AERA) at their

2008 annual meeting.

Professor Sophia Rabe-Hesketh was elected to the

International Statistical Institute.

Assistant Professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi received UC

Berkeley’s American Cultures Innovation in Teach-

ing Award.

Professor Geoffrey Saxe gave a keynote address for

the International Conference on Speech, Writing

and Context in Queretaro, Mexico.

Professor Alan Schoenfeld received the Senior

Scholar Award for Research in Mathematics Educa-

tion by the Special Interest Group for Research in

Mathematics Education of AERA.

Associate Professor Prentice Starkey earned the

highest rating of educational effectiveness by

the Institute of Education Sciences’ What Works

Clearinghouse for his early childhood mathematics

curriculum, “Pre–K Mathematics.”

Lecturer Derek Van Rheenen, who directs the

Athletics Study Center, was inducted into the UC

Berkeley Athletic Hall of Fame in October.

Professor Frank C. Worrell gave several invited

addresses this year, including those at the German

Institute for International Educational Research

and the American Psychological Association.

PUBLiCATiONS

Nina Gabelko, director of the Academic Talent De-

velopment Program, co-authored Every Child’s Right:

Academic Talent Development by Choice, Not Chance.

Professor Norton Grubb’s new book, The Money

Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity, explores

new approaches to school resources and both static

and dynamic conceptions of equity.

Adjunct Professsor Elfrieda Hiebert is editor of the

book, Finding the Right Texts: What Works for Beginning and

Struggling Readers.

APPOiNTMENTS

Hanan Alexander, professor of philosophy of

education and head of the International School at

the University of Haifa, was appointed Richard and

Rhoda Goldman Visiting Professor in Education

and Israel Studies at GSE for 2008–09.

Professor Emeritus Paul Ammon was named

to a national panel of experts on “Increasing the

Application of Child and Adolescent Learning and

Development Knowledge in Educator Preparation

Programs.”

Professor Frank C. Worrell was appointed to a

joint committee named to revise the Standards for

Educational and Psychological Testing.

GRANTS

Professor Glynda Hull received a nearly $500,000

Spencer Foundation grant entitled, “Youth-

Designed Social Networking: Investigating

Emergent Literacies, Identities and Relationships at

the Intersection of Online and Offline Experience”

(see page 7) as well as a Research Bridging Grant

from UC Berkeley for her project “Digital Literacy in

Developing Societies.”

Professor Marcia Linn received two $3 million Na-

tional Science Foundation (NSF) grants to continue

her work in the field of technology enhanced learn-

ing (see page 8).

Professor Judith Warren Little was awarded $50,000

from the Spencer Foundation for her project Map-

ping the Terrain of Organizational Learning and Professional

Practice.

Associate Professor Kathleen Metz is the recipient

of a nearly $1 million, three-year grant entitled

“Developing the Conceptual Underpinning of

Evolution in Second and Third Grade.”

Assistant Adjunct Professor Erin Murphy-Graham

is principal investigator of a new $1.28 million

Hewlett Foundation grant evaluating a Honduras

Education program.

Associate Professor Prentice Starkey was awarded

a $3 million, four-year grant from the Institute

of Education Sciences on “Closing the SES Gap in

Young Children’s Mathematical Knowledge.”

Bay Area Writing Project Director, Carol Tateishi, in partnership with faculty and staff of the Bay Area

Science Project, the Space Science Lab and Cal State

East Bay received a four-year California Postsecond-

ary Education Commission grant for “Advancing

Collaboration for Equity in Science,” a project that

focuses on the integration of science teaching and

writing in two Oakland elementary schools.

Professor Mark Wilson and the Berkeley Evalu-

ation and Assessment Research Center (BEAR)

received two grants from NSF: $1.5 million for the

Formative Assessment Delivery System (FADS)

project; and $192,000 for Diagnostic E-Learning

Trajectories Approach (DELTA), a collaboration

with math-education researchers at North Carolina

State University and Wireless Generation. They also

received a $76,000 grant from Deutsche Forschun-

gsgemeinschaft (DFG), the German counterpart

to NSF, for a collaboration with Berlin’s Humboldt

University to develop the German “English as a

First Foreign Language” test.

From left, Jabari Mahiri, Randi engle, Kathleen Metz, Alan Schoenfeld, norton Grubb

10 connected10 connected

faculty

When she first came to UC

Berkeley as an undergraduate,

Lisa García Bedolla studied

what issues were plaguing

disenfranchised communities.

Today, she’s back on campus

wrestling with the same issues

as an associate professor in

Language and Literacy, Society

and Culture.

While García Bedolla doesn’t begin teaching until next fall,

she won’t be limiting herself to the classroom. She is conduct-

ing research in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley

on low-propensity voters in racial/ethnic communities. Her

hope is that this project will lead to a more representative and

inclusive electorate in California.

“We don’t live in isolation,” says García Bedolla, who

just finished writing her second book, Latino Politics, set to be

released in May. “If you want to make any sort of substantive

change in the quality of life within your community, you have

to engage collectively. If we can figure out what motivates

people to get involved, we can get that engagement across a

more representative sample of society.”

García Bedolla is not surprised that years after she gradu-

ated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Latin American Studies

and Comparative Literature, she is still studying the sources of

and solutions to political inequity.

“As a woman of color, I’ve always had outsider status,”

García Bedolla explains. “I didn’t see myself represented at Cal,

in the faculty or the literature I was studying.” Those experi-

ences would prompt her to first earn a Ph.D. in political science

from Yale University. She then served as an associate professor

of Political Science and Chicano/Latino Studies at UC Irvine for

six years before coming to the School of Education.

For more on García Bedolla, visit http://gse.berkeley.edu/

faculty/lGarcíabedolla/lGarcíabedolla.html.

Na’ilah Nasir received her

B.A. from UC Berkeley. She did

her doctoral work at UCLA,

where her advisor was Geoff

Saxe. She lives in the East Bay

with her husband and their

four children, and has made

these parts her home for the

last eight years while teaching

at Stanford.

Now the award-winning teacher is staying home for good

after Cal made an offer she couldn’t refuse: a joint professor-

ship in African American Studies and the Graduate School of

Education, funded through the Berkeley Diversity Research

Initiative.

If working for two departments and a fledgling initiative

weren’t enough, the associate professor is also perched between

two GSE areas of study: Cognition and Development and Lan-

guage, Literacy, Society and Culture.

“It makes for a lot of meetings,” says Nasir, who will begin

teaching one course each in African American Studies and the

GSE starting in the spring.

It’s safe to say Nasir also has a serious side. With colleagues

at the University of Washington, she is embarking on a research

project that examines stereotypes and racial identity in

mathematics performance for elementary and middle school

students, utilizing projective racial stereotype measures.

She is also studying the educational trajectories for kids in

court schools inside juvenile halls.

“We talk a lot about how school systems in general mar-

ginalize and disempower some groups of kids,” says Nasir.

“This is a whole educational system that’s marginalized, and

that doesn’t make it into the mainstream conversation about

schooling. And yet [ironically] juvenile justice folks are always

saying it [education] is going to save these kids from a life of

crime.”

Eventually Nasir hopes to find out what works well in court

schools and how both traditional and court school systems

could be improved. She would also like to partner with faculty

at the Earl Warren Institute to help her think through the

policy implications.

She can hardly wait to have more meetings on campus.

For more on Nasir, visit http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/

NSNasir/NSNasir.html.

new Faces

Winter 2008 11

Janelle Scott is returning to her UC Berkeley roots as an as-

sistant professor in the School of Education and the Depart-

ment of African American Studies, where she and Na’ilah Nasir

(see page 10) hold joint positions funded through the fledgling

Berkeley Diversity Research Initiative.

“A cross-departmental appointment was very appealing to

me,” says Scott, who taught at NYU’s School of Education before

coming west. “It’s really nice to think about the appointment

as not having to necessarily choose between race or education.

I’m interested in both, and it makes great sense.”

Crossing over to other departments on campus is nothing

new for Scott, who like Nasir and Tina Trujillo (this page), an-

other new POME faculty member, received her Ph.D. in educa-

tion at UCLA. As a political science major at UC Berkeley, Scott

took several courses in African American Studies from Professor

Charles Henry, who is still influential to Scott’s studies of the

racial politics of public education and how they shape opportu-

nities for students and communities.

Scott is interested in the long legacy and history in the

United States around unequal schools and “what sort of rem-

edies are proposed, and by whom: who benefits and who loses

from them.” Her current research examines the relationship

between philanthropy and school choice policy in urban com-

munities. She won’t begin teaching until spring 2010 while she

researches venture philanthropy through a National Academy

of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

“A lot of the arguments that advocates make in favor of

school choice are often nested in arguments around racial

equity,” says Scott. “I think

it’s really important to engage

those arguments and as-

sumptions through empirical

work, through socio-political

analysis.”

Tina Trujillo didn’t waste

much time transitioning from

UCLA graduate student to UC

Berkeley faculty member.

Only three months ago

she returned to the Bay

Area with her husband and

son from Los Angeles, where she earned her Ph.D. in Urban

Schooling at UCLA. There, at the National Center for Research

on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), she

researched state accountability systems and the improvement

of low-performing schools, under the direction of current GSE

Associate Professor Rick Mintrop.

Trujillo’s dissertation focused on urban district reform and

showed how one district’s leaders developed a coherent instruc-

tional system that revolved around the API and state standards,

and that effectively raised test scores. Trujillo discovered that

this system triggered only surface-level changes to materials

and teacher routines, however, not deeper pedagogical changes

or professional learning.

Trujillo has made the north-south traverse before. After

teaching elementary school in Compton, she conducted educa-

tional evaluation and school reform work in the Bay Area.

Her scholarly route veered toward the mountains to the

University of Colorado at Boulder, where she received her B.A.

in Political Science and Master’s in Educational Foundations,

Policy, and Practice. But, as has been the case her entire aca-

demic and professional life, the straight path revolved around

understanding how educational leaders can work toward more

equitable systems for traditionally underserved students.

Trujillo, who teaches in Policy, Organization, Measurement

and Evaluation and prepares educational leaders in the Leader-

ship for Educational Equity Program (LEEP) and Principal

Leadership Institute (PLI), reflected on her decision to join the

GSE: “I saw a rich opportunity to bridge research and practice

by teaching in LEEP and PLI, and I was impressed with the

scholarship coming out of the GSE. I’m excited to learn from

and contribute to this body of knowledge.”

For more on Trujillo, visit http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/

faculty/TTrujillo/TTrujillo.html.

12 connected12 connected

students

Usree Bhattacharya’s face lights up when she talks about the

research she conducts or the students she teaches as a third-

year doctoral student — even while spending her afternoon

working in a study area in Tolman Hall that her peers half-

jokingly call “the cave.”

That’s because Bhattacharya fulfilled a lifelong dream when

she officially enrolled as a student at the Graduate School of

Education, a dream that began half-way across the globe in the

Indian capital, New Delhi.

Growing up the daughter of a professor who often traveled

to UC Berkeley, Bhattacharya had heard stories about the “intel-

lectually vibrant” and “politically aware” academic community.

Although she always aspired to become a student at the campus

one day, enrolling at Cal wasn’t originally part of the plan.

After earning her Bachelor’s and Master’s in English Litera-

ture at Delhi University, Bhattacharya started teaching English

in Indonesia. She found the experience rewarding, yet frustrat-

ing.

“There were a lot of problems in the school,” she explained.

“The students I taught received very little instruction in Eng-

lish from kindergarten to sixth grade.” And by seventh grade,

they were expected to convert entirely to English, reading

required texts traditionally reserved for first-language speak-

ers. How fair is that?”

A resolve to answer these questions led Bhattacharya to

continue her education. She earned a Master’s in Teaching

International Languages at Chico State and then enrolled in

GSE’s Language, Literacy, Society and Culture program. Her

dissertation focuses on theories of globalization and literary

practices within the quadra-lingual context of an orphanage in

her hometown of New Delhi.

When not conducting research that focuses on the kids

in the orphanage, who she calls “the most vibrant, hopeful,

optimistic and determined” of any she’s ever met, Bhattacharya

wrestles with critical scholarship and engages in thought-

provoking discussions, both as a student and graduate student

instructor. She currently runs a section for a course in the

School of Education entitled “Literacy: Individual and Societal

Development.”

“When taking classes and learning about various teaching

strategies, I fulfill the student role,” says Bhattacharya. “When

I serve as a graduate student instructor, I fill the role of the

teacher. It’s a perfect combination.”

Bhattacharya’s passion for education has not gone unno-

ticed. She was recently awarded a pre-dissertation Qayum Fam-

ily Foundation Travel Grant, administered by UC Berkeley’s

Center for South Asian Studies, that will allow her to continue

her research in India.

Outside of her GSE assignments, Bhattacharya writes a blog

for the Berkeley Language Center, hangs out with her friends at

International House and helped the Obama campaign as a self-

professed “Obama girl.”

The way Bhattacharya sees it, “Anyone who has access to

these opportunities would want to seize them.”

–Joseph Bui

Graduate Student instructor Awards for 2007–08Eight School of Education Ph.D. candidates earned outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) awards for 2007–08, while Sereeta Alexander, a fourth-year Human Development and Education student, was honored with this year’s Teaching Effectiveness Award.

The other GSE students and their areas are James Andretta, Cognition and Development; Chela Delgado, Language and Literacy,

Society and Culture; Nora Kenney, Language and Literacy, Society and Culture; David Malinowski, Language and Literacy, Society

and Culture (awarded in the College of Letters & Science); Jessica Parker, Language and Literacy, Society and Culture; Gabriela Segade, Language and Literacy, Society and Culture; and Leah Walker, Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation.

Spotlight

Usree Bhattacharya Indian Dream

Photo: Steven Cohen

Students Launch Academic Journal

A group of Graduate School of Education students

have launched plans for a peer-reviewed, inter-

disciplinary journal, slated to debut online in fall 2009.

With the help of GSE faculty, the Berkeley Review

of Education (BRE) promises to continue the tradition

of scholarship in the School by examining issues of

educational diversity and equity within cognitive,

developmental, socio-historical, linguistic and

cultural contexts.

“I anticipate it will solidify our students’ place

among the best of their peers at other universities,

especially those with student journals,” said Dean David

Pearson. “It’s also a chance for them to gain first-hand

experience in the editorial side of academic publishing.”

Edited by GSE students, the Berkeley Review of

Education will publish research and theory from senior

and emerging scholars, practitioners and policymakers,

with the aim of being representative of the diverse

scholarship and interests as well as methodologi-

cal and theoretical approaches to studying learning,

development, education and policy.

“We want to contribute to an evolving discussion

of how educational access, quality, achievement,

diversity, social justice and reform efforts influence

the educational enterprise,” says Sera Hernandez, one

of the journal’s editors.

“One of the most exciting things about this

project is how collaborative it has been,” she adds.

“From the outset, we have thought and acted as a

team, bouncing ideas off each other. That’s something

we hope to continue as we move forward with the

publication.”

The Berkeley Review of Education distributed its first

call for papers on October 1. To get involved or to inquire

about submitting manuscripts, contact the editors at

bre_editor@berkeley.edu or visit the journal’s website

at http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucbgse/bre.

HONORSAditya Adirejda (SESAME) and Maxine McKinney de Royston (Human Development) have won Mentored Research Fellow-

ships in the University-wide competition for 2009. Both are

advisees of Assistant Professor Randi Engle as well as recipients

of the Marilyn Raby Fellowship — de Royston in 2007 and 2008

and Adirejda for 2009.

Gabino Arredondo, a doctoral student in Language & Literacy,

Society and Culture was awarded the University Of California

All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity, Dissertation

Fellowship (UC/Accord). The ethnographic study focuses on the

construction and socialization of college-going identities among

Latina/o and African American students.

Dafney Blanca Dabach, a doctoral student in ELLC, is working

on a project called “Minority Youth: Adaptations in ‘Sheltered’

and ‘Mainstream’ Classrooms.” She was recently awarded the UC

Linguistic Minority Research Institute Dissertation Grant and a

UC Accord Dissertation Fellowship. Dabach is also an Arts Educa-

tion Faculty Fellow at California College of the Arts and has

taught photography for more than 14 years.

Linn Posey, a doctoral student in LLSC, received two prestigious

dissertation fellowships, a Ford Foundation Minority Disserta-

tion Fellowship and a Spencer Fellowship. Posey’s research exam-

ines the social and political dimensions of demographic change

in a Northern California public elementary school, investigating

both how adult members of the school community interpret pro-

cesses of gentrification occurring in the school and surrounding

neighborhood and how educational inequalities linked to race,

class and space are supported, contested and negotiated in the

changing school context.

Mary Vixie Sandy, a doctoral student in the Leadership for

Education Equity Program, directs the Center for Cooperative

Research and Extension Services for Students (CRESS) at UC

Davis. CRESS serves as an applied research and outreach center

for the UCD School of Education, providing professional develop-

ment for teachers, supporting the development of community

school partnerships, evaluating education initiatives and spon-

soring faculty research in the schools.

School of Education graduate student Elizabeth Jaeger was

recently appointed to serve a three-year term as a member of the

National Council of Teachers of English Support for the Learning

and Teaching of English Steering Committee on Social and Politi-

cal Concerns.

Winter 2008 13

Above, from left, GSe students nathaniel Dumas, Irenka Dominguez-Pareto and Shlomy Kattan prepare their first issue.Photo: Steven Cohen.

Aditya Adirejda

James Andretta

Maxine McKinney de Royston

Linn Posey

Gabino Arredondo

Mary vixie Sandy

Sereeta Alexander

14 connected14 connected

When Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) was

founded in the early 1980s, the state’s schools were in turmoil

following the passage of Proposition 13, which indirectly lim-

ited public education funding.

In 2008, 25 years later, Proposition 13 is still intact, the

state’s schools are still in turmoil following the prematurely

declared “Year of Education,” while California’s continuing

budget crisis directly limits public education funding and

per-pupil spending has dropped below levels never dreamed of

in the ’80s.

Proverbially speaking, the more things change, the more

they stay the same.

The good news is that PACE has grown substantially in

size and stature since then-GSE Professor James Guthrie, who

taught in the School of Education for 27 years; Stanford Profes-

sor Michael Kirst; and then-chancellor of the California Com-

munity Colleges Gerald Hayward founded PACE (originally

called Policy Alternatives for California Education). And the

other good news is that the independent policy center has re-

mained true to its pioneering mission, principles and strategies.

“I guess that it shows that every year should be the ‘Year of

Education’ until we keep the promise of excellent education for

all of California’s young people,” says PACE Executive Director

David Plank, who joined the PACE team two years ago from

Michigan State where he founded and directed the Education

Policy Center.

Plank is not about to declare PACE’s mission accomplished

— to define and sustain a long-term strategy for comprehensive

policy reform and continuous improvement in performance

at all levels of California’s education system. But the three

principles guiding the model policy center’s strategies remain

intact: to target resources to schools and students who need

them the most; to empower local schools and districts with

more autonomy and flexibility; and to rigorously evaluate what

is working and what is not.

Bridging two worldsFrom its earliest days, PACE directors recognized that the gap be-

tween the disparate needs of researchers and legislators was wide.

“For policy research to have an impact, academics need to

be familiar with the world where policymakers live,” says PACE

Director Bruce Fuller, who served as a special assistant to then-

California Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown and as education

adviser to two state Assembly education committees. “I tell my

students that getting public officials to be responsive requires

putting yourself in their place. Having been there can help a lot

as scholars try to figure out what kinds of research policymakers

will find useful.”

Professor Fuller, who joined PACE a decade ago, preaches

what he practices. While trained in sociology, the GSE professor

takes a pragmatic approach to education policy analysis. He

and other PACE directors have a clear sense of the requisite

legislative compromises and machinations that take place.

In former lives, Kirst served as president of the State Board of

Education; Guthrie was an education specialist for the U.S. Sen-

ate and Department of Education, as well as a member of the

PACEsetters at 25Research Center Celebrates a Quarter Century as Leader in Legislative Policy AnalysisBy Steven Cohen

PACe was honored with a California Legislature resolution in recognition of their 25 years of service to the state. Above, from left, PACe director Dominic Brewer (USC), executive director David Plank (UC Berkeley), director Susanna Loeb (Stanford), State Senator tom torlakson, founding director Gerald hayward (Sacramento) and director Bruce Fuller (UC Berkeley)

Phot

o: S

teve

n C

ohen

Winter 2008 15

Berkeley School Board; and Hayward worked as the education

policy wonk for the State Senate.

It’s a critical difference that’s not lost on former State

Senator, Assemblyman and Secretary of Education Gary Hart.

While Sacramento now swarms with educational think tanks,

lobbyists and organizations from every political and ideological

stripe, Hart says that in the early ’80s PACE was the first one at

the table, ready to bridge the worlds of research and practice for

policymakers.

“PACE was clearly the pioneer in this effort,” says Hart, who

served as the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee

from 1983 to 1995. “The idea that they were here to help us rather

than the academy was a really welcome breath of fresh air… The

collaboration between two premier research institutions, Cal

and Stanford, the superb academic credentials and background

of the PACE directors; and the clarity and recommendations in

their publications was a very powerful combination… If PACE

hadn’t dropped into the fray, a lot of the good educational work

would not have gotten done or be as far along as it is now.”

Hart believes that PACE’s work stood out in four areas

during his 20 years in Sacramento: school finance, vocational

education, preschool education and childcare, and the ability

to “take the long view,” as exemplified by PACE’s premier publi-

cation, “Conditions of Education,” first published in 1984.

“Conditions” was resurrected for the PACE 25th anniver-

sary symposium of education researchers and policymakers in

Sacramento on October 2, that Hart and other prominent state

legislators attended. Produced and authored by current PACE

directors Fuller, USC’s Dominic Brewer and Stanford’s Susanna

Loeb, with additional support from others, “Conditions of Edu-

cation in California 2008” offers a sobering status report on the

lack of educational opportunity in the Golden State.

“Lifting Low-Achieving Students and Schools,” a chapter co-

written by Fuller and Policy, Organization, Measurement and

Evaluation (POME) doctoral student Lynette Parker, examines

five different state and federal tests of student progress that

provide inconsistent barometers of student progress and show

contradictory results.

GSE Professor Norton Grubb authored a chapter called “The

Transition from High School to Postsecondary Education,” that

spells out several improvements and recommendations that —

like the other chapters in the publication on English Language

Learners, teachers, school finance and governance — can be ad-

dressed, at least in part, without infusions of new money.

Luis Huerta, who co-authored papers with Grubb and Fuller

as a doctoral student in POME and is now an assistant profes-

sor at Teachers College, Columbia University, says that he and

several other graduate students who have worked with PACE

honed their policy analysis skills of timely education reform

issues that have “impacted both the applied context at the state

legislature and the wider research and academic community.”

Besides publishing policy briefs, research reports and

working papers that address key policy issues, PACE convenes

monthly seminars and briefings — most often in the State

Capitol — bringing together leading scholars, practitioners

and policymakers to discuss current educational issues. In No-

vember, Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco from UC Berkeley’s Earl Warren

Institute, Patricia Rucker from the CTA, and Ed Voice Policy

Director Bill Lucia joined Fuller in Sacramento to examine the

federal role in school reform.

With a prescience for the most pressing issues in education,

Fuller, Plank, other PACE directors and education policy re-

searchers from across the country also provide expert testimo-

ny to legislative committees and other policymakers; team with

local school districts and professional associations on projects

aimed at supporting policy innovation, data use and rigorous

evaluation; and command headline-grabbing coverage in key

media outlets on a host of education policy and political stories

such as No Child Left Behind, school finance and preschool.

Recently PACE teamed with six of California’s largest

urban school districts — Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Sac-

ramento, San Diego and San Francisco — to form the Partner-

ship for Urban Education Research in order to increase data

availability, enhance internal research capacity and promote

collaboration and information sharing across district lines.

One of the partnerships’ first bombshells was to address

California’s dropout crisis. While researchers in political and

academic circles have traditionally struggled over various

methodologies, exact numbers and the true dimensions of the

dropout problem, nothing could obscure the fact that the total

of the somewhat conflicting data meant a turning point in the

crisis. A Sacramento Bee headline in its July 17 edition concurred:

“New numbers won’t end California school dropout debate.”

Plank jokes that research questions invariably receive two

answers: “it’s complicated” and “it depends,” while policy ques-

tions also have two answers: “yes and no.”

“PACE has become really good at figuring out how to move

from the nuanced conclusions of academic research to clear

guidance for policymakers, which leads to better policies and a

better future for California’s students.”

“PACE was clearly the pioneer… if they hadn’t dropped into the fray, a lot of the good educational work would not have gotten done or be as far along as it is now.”

16 connected16 connected

Urban outfitters

Professional Program Graduates Change the Look of Bay Area’s Underserved Schools

Malana Willis with some of her students at Learning Without LimitsPhoto: Peg Skorpinski

Winter 2008 17

one day during her first days teaching at oakland’s Learning Without Limits School, Malana Willis looked toward the back of her classroom. one of her second graders had abandoned the lesson and taken a large cardboard box from the recycle bin, excavated the cupboard under the sink, unearthed tem-pura paints and, with a few of his classmates, painted the box.

By the time Willis noticed the impromptu art project, the box was covered

with dripping blue paint and the classroom floor was starting to resemble

the early stages of a Jackson Pollack painting.

“I was totally appalled,” says Willis, who had recently received her cre-

dential through GSE’s Developmental Teacher Education (DTE) program.

By Steven Cohen

Urban outfitters

Professional Program Graduates Change the Look of Bay Area’s Underserved Schools

“Clearly they were using materials that I hadn’t even showed

them yet. The craziest part was that I was slightly relieved

that at least those few kids had found a creative way to stay

occupied!”

Willis’s crushing welcome to the world of teaching at the

new small school, located in east Oakland’s Fruitvale District,

brought with it loads of self-doubt. Willis told a colleague that

she felt nauseous every morning; nervous she could not handle

the challenges of the day ahead.

To that point in her life, Willis had experienced success

academically and professionally. She had made the Dean’s list as

a psychology major at

Williams College. After

graduating from the

prestigious liberal arts

college, she spent five

years teaching abroad,

community organizing, working in an autism clinic and non-

profit agencies, each one preparing her for the next job.

She ultimately settled on teaching, a career that would tap

into her natural creative abilities and strengths as well as her

idealistic zeal to make a positive difference in children’s lives —

the same calling that attracts so many others to UC Berkeley,

the School of Education and urban schools. Willis felt she had

found the perfect fit in teaching, and she bubbled with enthu-

siasm before and after she thrived as a fellowship recipient in

the DTE program.

As prepared as she thought she could be, Willis was tested

by the extreme challenges that she encountered at the new

elementary school. Although the students thrived during

hands-on activities, she struggled to meet their diverse needs.

Juggling curriculum requirements, students’ social, emotional

and academic needs, and the demands of helping to launch the

first-year school were dizzying.

“I had never done so poorly at something that I cared so

much about and had worked so hard to prepare for,” she admits

about the beginning of her first year.

I first met Willis in late September, about a month into her

second year at the school, housed on the grounds of Jefferson

School, which was reconstituted in 2007 to make way for two

smaller schools there: Learning Without Limits and Global

Family School.

For Willis, a lot has changed for the better. As a second-year

teacher, she focuses more on academics and building commu-

nity in her classroom. When I asked her how she would compare

the two years, Willis said that during year one she spent the

majority of her time concentrating on managing negative

behavior. Now she was teaching more engaging lessons and

focusing on celebrating positive behavior, which have made the

classroom experience more enjoyable.

With the magnetic glow of a 32-years-young woman just two months shy of giving birth to her first child, principal

Kyla Johnson-Trammell wanders through the aging, art-filled hallways and over the broken blacktop of oakland’s Sequoia elementary School, attracting scores of adoring students, many of whom place their hands on her round belly.

the third-generation oakland educator is one of a new breed of principals hailing from the GSe’s Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) who are leading Bay Area urban schools with a nimble, passionate and hands-on approach.

“i had never done so poorly at something that i cared so much about and had worked so hard to prepare for.”

Learning Without Limits Elementary77.9% FRPM 99.6% non-White 58.6% eLL

School Demographics Key

ELL = English Language Learners

FRPM = Free or reduced price meals

Source: 2007-08 School Profiles,

California Department of Education,

Educational Demographics Office

Phot

o: S

teve

n C

ohen

“We’ve got it all,” exclaims Johnson-trammell of the school situ-ated along Lincoln Avenue in oakland’s Upper Dimond neighbor-hood between highways 580/Macarthur Avenue and highway 13/Montclair hills. “We’ve got kids with upper-class parents to transitional homeless kids whose parents are in jail; kids whose parents work in the district; traditional families; single families; GAte families. It makes it wonderful and also a challenge be-cause it’s not like we can have this one set vision or even this one instructional focus. I have kindergartners who are reading Harry Potter and then I have kindergartners who still don’t know what the letter ‘A’ is.”

But Johnson-trammell has demonstrated that she’s ready to tackle whatever challenges her oakland school throws at her. She credits the PLI and other experiences that include teaching at an oakland elementary school and a stint as an assistant principal in the Mt. Diablo School District.

“the [PLI] program really prepares you to confront the multitude of challenges in urban schools, to expect the unexpected and to think on your feet,” says the 2003 PLI graduate, who also co-teaches a course in the program.

Under Johnson-trammell’s tutelage over the past three years, Sequoia elementary has thrived. At last September’s expect Success Awards, the oakland School District awarded Sequoia its Blue Ribbon school award for most test score gains for African American students, who repre-sent 40 percent of its 328 students.

“I think the most gratifying [part of the job] has been being able to think outside of the box,” says Johnson-trammell, who runs the school without the benefit of an assistant or vice principal, “hav-ing to work under the constraints of a public school system and having a little liberty and freedom to really think about what a good quality urban school looks like for the kids and parents who I am of service to.”

Besides rising scores on various achievement measures, Johnson-trammell has helped establish Sequoia as an Arts Anchor Grant School with a focus on integrating visual arts into reading, writ-ing and other curriculum objectives. through a grant from the Alameda office of education, an artist in residence works with the children as well as the teachers, who receive professional development for art once a month in an effort to bring it into their classrooms. the school also has a successful garden project and

other enrichment and intervention programs that Johnson-trammell says do a good job integrating content areas and not just focusing exclusively on “the three Rs.”

Johnson-trammell has tapped her PLI back-ground to work creatively and conscientiously within budget constraints and build strong relationship with her teachers. “I try to put in

place structures to maximize the time they have to teach and plan and give them support,” says Johnson-trammell, “because it is a hard enough job in itself.”

Johnson-trammell has managed to make the most out of a tough job herself.

—SC

“The difference [between first and second year] isn’t so

much night and day as night and twilight,” she commented.

“It’s still very hard, very busy and very exhausting.”

Clearly Willis has good company at Learning Without

Limits where she works in body or spirit with six other Gradu-

ate School of Education alumni; recent DTE graduates Morgan

Alconcher, Manuel Herrera, Samara Ripps, Olivia Sanders and

Daniel Seward all teach at the small school, and their principal

Leo Fuchs is a graduate of the Principal Leadership Institute

(PLI). Not coincidentally, Susan Audap, a veteran PLI coach, who

graduated in PLI’s first cohort in 2001, coached Fuchs through

the school’s incubation year in 2006 and its first full one in 2007.

Exactly how many of GSE’s professional program graduates

still work in the Bay Area’s urban schools is a little difficult

to ascertain. Follow-up survey data of Multicultural Urban

Secondary English (MUSE), Master’s and Credential in Science

and Mathematics Education (MACSME), DTE and PLI gradu-

ates between 2001 and 2005 show that nearly all have defied the

odds by staying in schools at least five years.

Nationally, a third of new teachers abandon the profession

entirely within three years of entering it, while 46 percent leave

within their first five years according to a 2003 study by Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania Education Professor Richard Ingersoll. The

attrition rate nearly doubles for high-poverty schools.

“i have kindergartners who are reading Harry Potter and then i have kindergartners who still don’t know what the letter ‘A’ is.”

Sequoia Elementary48.9% FRPM 90.6% non-White 19.4% eLL

Winter 2008 19

20 connected20 connected

“The research is clear that it’s hard to recruit teachers into

the most underserved schools, and it’s extremely hard to keep

them in those schools,” says GSE Assistant Professor Ingrid

Seyer-Ochi, who researches the career trajectories of teachers.

Informal evidence suggests that approximately 90 percent

of GSE’s professional program graduates work in urban set-

tings or first ring of suburbs, such as Hayward, Richmond and

El Cerrito. These communities have the highest concentrations

of students who most need education for economic mobility.

They are also the places where schools are more often under-

mined by the way they are organized, funded and run.

With 313 graduates — half of whom are people of color —

the Principal Leadership Institute

boasts a 98.5 percent retention rate

among the 231 who now serve in ur-

ban schools as principals, assistant

principals and district-level leaders.

Longtime PLI and Oakland Unified coach Audap, who has

spent 38 years as an educator, including five as principal of

Cobb Elementary in San Francisco’s Western Addition, believes

that, individually and collectively, GSE credentialed graduates

share certain core qualities and values which set them apart,

and have given the underserved Bay Area schools where they

work a needed boost.

“Whether they are teachers or administrators, they see

working in schools as a profession, not just a stepping stone,”

says Audap, who has seen their efforts on the front lines. “They

have a can-do attitude: they show inventiveness, persistence

and resilience. They’re grounded in the real world. They share

a focus on equity and they believe that everyone deserves social

capital.”

Audap’s high praise synched with my first impressions of

Willis and the other two-dozen GSE alumni interviewed and

observed for this article. At the same time, none of them told

me their lives are easy. To the contrary, they said that working

in their particular urban school setting was the hardest thing

that they have ever done.

These credentialed educators

and administrators also confided

that they are better equipped for

the short and long run because of

the training and education they

received at the School of Education. It seems somewhat para-

doxical that they were saying that they couldn’t possibly have

prepared for what they were now doing, but they valued the

preparation they received through their respective professional

programs (see five profiles).

“I probably criticized GSE more than I should have,” admits

Jessica Quindel, a Berkeley High mathematics teacher, “but

over the course of my two years in MACSME, I had time to think

“They’re grounded in the real world. They share a focus on equity and they believe that everyone deserves social capital.”

Dte graduate Daniel Seward commands respect in his first year of teaching. Photo: Steven Cohen

Winter 2008 21

about the kind of curriculum I wanted to teach, the kinds of relationships I

wanted with students and families and other teachers, and to refine my views on

assessment, group work and other big picture items.”

First propelled into teaching when she took the undergraduate class in

Urban Education from former GSE Professor Pedro Noguera, Quindel feels that

she has sustained her drive for social justice and teaching — she is already among

the top 50 percent in Berkeley High seniority after just four years — by working

with the Interactive Mathematics Program curriculum and its extended network,

including her mentor teacher at Berkeley High who provided curricular and

instructional support.

The graduate course in urban education — taught by Seyer-Ochi to all

second-year DTE and MACSME students in the spring, and by Associate Profes-

sor Jabari Mahiri to all first-year MUSE students in the fall — has also been a

springboard for professional program students who use the class to deepen their

understanding of equity, opportunity, race and class disparities in the context of

education.

“Ingrid [Seyer-Ochi] really pushed us beyond conventional thoughts,” says

Learning Without Limits second-grade teacher Samara Ripps. “She made us focus

on the inequities.”

For a community-mapping project in the class, the pre-service students

observed the physical environment around a school neighborhood, as well as the

flow of students, families and community members. Some students observed

families arriving at school and picking up their kids at the end of the day, while

others witnessed parents drop off and pick up their children at their classrooms

and how they interacted with the teacher.

“It opened our eyes to a new perspective on parent participation in schools,”

says Herrera. “Even without the traditional forms of parent involvement like the

PTA, they found a variety of authentic ways to strengthen the family/school con-

nection.”

Seyer-Ochi says that she gets requests from her former urban education

students like Herrera and Ripps to continue to discuss issues around race, equity

and inequality that they now encounter every day at their schools. The assistant

professor will soon be piloting an ongoing support network to widen that conver-

sation and community beyond the informal networks that already exist, such as

monthly get-togethers of professional program cohorts.

“If we have really dynamic people coming out of our programs who really want

to stay in teaching,” says Seyer-Ochi, “then we need to do what we can to help

them stay in it for the long haul through sustained communities that support

newer teachers.”

Despite a rough first year, Lara Trale, a MUSE graduate and second-year

teacher at Oakland High School is optimistic about staying there, in part because

she chose to participate in GSE’s Project IMPACT (see page 37) last year as well as

MUSE, working on inquiry with other teachers at her school site.

“It helped me form academic bonds here at school and broke down a lot of my

concerns about being a new teacher,” says Trale. “It’s important for me to know

Berkeley High28.2% FRPM 66.7% non-White 6.2% eLL

Above, Jessica Quindel has made curriculum choices that have sparked her students' interest in math.Photo: Steven Cohen

Seyer-ochi is piloting a support network for professional program graduates.Photo: Bijan yashar

22 connected22 connected

With a number line projected on the screen in front of his Willard Middle School class in Berkeley, teacher Jake Disston displays the keen awareness of a seasoned

conductor at a podium.

he urges the diverse group of 20 students to squish together in order to talk about where to place the variables or expressions on the number line. After a 12-year-old girl shows the rest of the seventh graders where she believes the expression should go, Disston asks the others for their opinions.

In another seventh grade pre-algebra class, one could imagine a teacher imploring his charges to do a related textbook exercise. But even on this routine review Disston en-courages explanations from his students.

“there’s a huge divide between students who are able to crank through problems and those who don’t,” says the 1997 Master’s and Credential in Science and Mathematics education (MACSMe) graduate. “how do you ask a question of kids to reason through something rather than just to recall from

memory whether they have it or they don’t? how do we improve the situation for kids who aren’t learning?”

engaging those hard-to-reach students in this urban setting has motivated Disston at Willard for 11 mostly gratifying years. one of a handful of national Board Certified teachers in the Berkeley school district, Disston continues to draw support from an extensive professional learning community that includes the Diversity in Mathematics education (DiMe) project and the MACSMe program, as well as school and district colleagues.

Before returning to the classroom full time in September, Disston spent three years spreading his wealth of teaching knowledge district-wide, coaching mathematics teachers throughout Berkeley and coordinating pro-fessional development workshops through the DIMe partnership.

the cross-site collaboration has paid divi-dends in Berkeley’s mathematics classrooms. Despite tight school budgets, the district has

maintained smaller class sizes of 20 students for seventh and eight grade math classes. the middle school mathematics departments have built in common assessments that reward understanding mathematics over par-roting what they've memorized. And scores on the mathematics portion of the California Standards test are on the rise.

While Disston believes that no pre-service program can totally prepare a student for the challenges of teaching full time in a public school, he is quick to credit MACSMe for getting him off on the right foot.

“the breadth of experience [in MACSMe] is really helpful toward developing your intu-ition, strategies and an attitude to just keep going,” says Disston. “It’s a very different ex-perience from being thrown into a classroom without much guidance or mentorship.”

In the meantime, Disston has discovered a new expression for his mathematical tastes.

“I used to think that you only reached mathematics at the highest levels, and this [school math] was all sort of a warm-up,” says the one-time Reed College math major. “I’ve learned, or maybe I’ve unlearned, to love the subject of middle school math, of algebra, pre-algebra and that transition of thinking about mathematics.

“And I’m still finding out what I can do slightly differently each day so that every kid will get into it a little more.”

—SC

Willard Middle57.4% FRPM 77.3% non-White 8.9% eLL

that other teachers at my school are working on their own time,

in real and immediate ways to make the school a better place by

improving their own instruction.”

Unlike Berkeley High’s Quindell, Trale says that she knew

from a very young age that she wanted to teach. She chose

MUSE because “I admired the program’s rigor, and could tell

that they offered serious support structures to help their stu-

dents meet consistently high expectations.”

Classroom management issues overwhelmed Trale, like

many other rookie teachers, during a frustrating first year in

which she had five English classes, and her English 2 sections

began the year with an average fifth- or sixth-grade reading level.

“As the year progressed, I came to see that a lot of my disci-

plinary problems were rooted in the students’ reading difficul-

ties,” Trale says. “I know it seems like basic psychology, but it

took me a while to recognize that students often yelled and

wandered around and threw things because they needed an

escape from work they thought they couldn’t do.”

Trale is more optimistic now and believes that she made

the right choice by sticking it out. “With the support of my

cohort, my student teaching supervisors, my professors and my

wonderful colleagues at Oakland High and Project IMPACT,

success feels possible.”

Like Seyer-Ochi, MUSE founding director and GSE professor

Sarah Freedman says that preparing and keeping former

students, like Trale, working successfully in high-poverty,

Photo: Steven Cohen

Winter 2008 23

low-performing urban schools, such as Oakland High, is an essential undertaking.

Through a longitudinal, qualitative study, Freedman and Deborah Appleman,

a professor of education at Carleton College, examined how teacher education

could support teacher retention. Their findings, published in a recent article in

Teacher Education Quarterly entitled “ ‘What Else Would I be Doing?’: Teacher Identity

and Teacher Retention in Urban Schools,” concluded:

“… we must continue to create the most robust programs we can, offer our best

theoretical and practical pedagogical knowledge, and help them [beginning teach-

ers] to become more knowledgeable about the challenges they and their students

face… These young educators remain optimistic that they can still make some

difference for their students, enough of a difference to keep trying.”

Teacher turnover is not a big issue at Sequoia Elementary School, which last year

was honored by Oakland School District for posting the greatest test score gains

among African American students.

“Retaining teachers creates a real cohesive community,” says Principal Kyla

Johnson-Trammell, a PLI graduate who is co-teaching in the program (see profile

page 18). “Kids who are bounced around from school to school and have instability in

their home lives just need extra academic support. It adds that extra layer of advan-

tage because the teachers not only know their craft and know their curriculum and

get to know their families and communities, but they also do a lot of articulation

with the teacher [in the grades] below and above them.”

“i know it seems like basic psychology, but it took me a while to recognize that students often yelled and wandered around and threw things because they needed an escape from work they thought they couldn’t do.”

Oakland High70% FRPM 98.6% non-White 19.9% eLL

Above, Lara trale with fellow MUSe alumna and oakland high english teacher Aya

Allen at an IMPACt meeting at the schoolPhoto: Steven Cohen

Johnson-Trammell says that Sequoia has been able to offer

individualized instruction within its limited resources. One of

the major differences between urban schools that succeed and

those that do not, she says, is the ability to quickly identify stu-

dents who are failing and strengthen those places where there

are gaps at the moment they get noticed.

The young principal introduced me to Tahya Abuzaid, a

Sequoia fifth grader whose home language is Arabic. As an

English Language Learner, Abuzaid receives extra individual

support from his regular teacher and works diligently. John-

son-Trammell says that with such a high English Language

Development population at the diverse school, Abuzaid doesn’t

feel singled out, and, as a result, has made great strides socially

and academically.

Kevin Jeung, a 2007 DTE graduate and fourth-grade teacher

at Sequoia, says that a teacher’s life is often extremely difficult,

but “it’s the moments when students' eyes go bright, and the

light bulb goes on in their heads and the trust relationships that

are built over the course of the year that make it all worth it.”

Jeung’s take on the power of building personal relation-

ships resonates with his former DTE classmates and teaching

colleagues at Learning Without Limits. As time allows, Learn-

ing Without Limits teachers visit with each of their students’

families at their homes. They say that they also take time after

school to go on weekend outings with some of their students,

such as to track meets, drum sessions and church events.

Teachers can offer alternative solutions that society

doesn’t or can’t, according to Na’ilah Nasir, an associate pro-

fessor who joined the GSE and the African Amercian Studies

Department this fall (see page 10). While instructional content

is still king, Nasir says that teachers often can’t focus on learn-

ing because so many of their students of color are wrestling with

identity issues.

“The racial stereotypes and polarization of ethnic groups on

campuses don’t come from the classrooms but it is very much

played out there,” says Nasir, who has researched culture and

race in diverse urban high school mathematics classes. “Teachers

don’t really know how to handle it or they just ignore it. I don’t

think that is the optimal solution. I think teachers can disrupt

that by helping students construct themselves differently.”

Another troubling trend, according to assistant professor

Janelle Scott, who, like Nasir, joined the GSE and the African

24 connected

Erica Ramirez grew up in South Central Los Angeles. She did not become a teacher because she had good role models in school. “Unfortunately, I saw what bad teaching looked like,” she says. “I thought the kids deserved better.”

After graduating from UCLA, she applied to UC Berkeley’s Multicultural Urban Second-ary english (MUSe) master’s and credential program. A number of her friends went the emergency credential route to being a teacher, but Ramirez says that she “didn’t want to go into the classroom unprepared, like some of the Good Samaritan teachers I’d had who had excellent intentions but little to offer in the way of curriculum and challenges.”

Ramirez uses the lessons she garnered in the MUSe program to teach her classes of eng-lish Language Learners (eLL) at Mission high. All of her students have been in the U.S. for three years or less, and some arrived only a couple of months ago. She works with them both on reading and language development. they spend half of the class in the language lab, practicing pronunciation.

on the day I visit, her students are about to start reading elie Wiesel’s memoir of the holocaust, Night. Ramirez starts off with a chart on the interactive SmartBoard she is dem-onstrating, a combination of a laptop with a projector and a responsive dry-erase board. the chart has three columns, KnoW, WAnt to KnoW, and LeARneD, a strategy she brought from her credential program. the students offer suggestions for the first two col-umns, including questions about whether events like the holocaust continue to happen.

“In my classes at Berkeley,” says Ramirez, “I learned that students might have low-levels of literacy, but high levels of thinking. It’s important not to lower expectations in the curriculum.”

Ramirez frames the discussion by asking the students to write a short response to the statement, “history repeats itself, just with different people.” the students offer examples of when history does repeat, but Ramirez suggests a counter-example about her mother wanting to give her a quinceañera party when she turned 15. Ramirez told her that she wanted to save the money for college. When Ramirez graduated from UCLA, she asked her mother to throw a big, belated quinceañera party.

the students, who are a little older than 15, respond enthusiastically, asking many ques-tions about whether Ramirez’s family gave the standard presents to the guests and whether there was dancing.

“the reason I told the quinceañera story,” she tells me after class, “is because I believe in reminding students that they have agency and power to change things instead of just pas-sively accepting them.”

Ramirez jokes that her students — who are with her 90 minutes a day, five days a week — “must really love me or hate me by the end of the semester.”

Judging from the crowd of students that flood her room during lunch hours, it looks like love is winning.

—Zack Rogow

Mission High57.6% FRPM 93.2% non-White 46.8% eLL

“i believe in reminding students that they have agency and power to

change things instead of just passively accepting them.”

Below, teacher Kevin Jeung says that his fourth graders are

measuring up, thanks, in part to the Sequoia's model garden program.

Photo: Steven Cohen

Photo: Steven Cohen

Winter 2008 25

26 connected

American Studies Department this fall (see page 10), is that a

certain set of schools argue that students of color from low-in-

come families just need more discipline, structure and back to

basics. As a result, Scott says that “schools develop a very tiered

system of what other kids are getting and then what Black kids,

who have not gotten quality educations, need.”

The use of scripted state- or district-mandated language

arts curriculum such as Open Court Reading have many less-

experienced teachers living in fear of the so-called “curriculum

police” — those authorities who are ready to punish them for

veering away from their teaching manuals.

That’s a case where the kids are punished, according to

Jeremy Hilinski, a former literacy coach with the Pittsburg

Unified School District and the new vice principal of Green

Oaks Academy, an East Palo Alto elementary school with 87

percent Latino students.

“If students are not interested, they’d rather be sent to the

office,” says the 2007 PLI graduate. “That’s what happens when

you’re dealing with children of color and those from low socio-

economic communities and children and families who have

been disenfranchised from education because it’s boring and

irrelevant to their lives.

“We get stuck because a lot of teachers don’t see it that way.

They see the students as being defiant.”

Hilinski sees a “blatant” difference between “old-school”

approaches and the “new-school” ones that GSE professional

program graduates practice. Longtime educators like Audap

and Bessie Stewart Ross, a retired principal from the San Mateo-

Foster City schools who coaches Hilinski for the PLI, also share

that view.

“You can really tell the people who have a progressive train

of thought when it comes to professional leadership,” says

Hilinski, “because they’re instructional education leaders as

opposed to being really good organizational managers. [But]

in essence, the best classroom management plan or device is an

engaging lesson plan.”

When it comes to school management, Audap recalls some

sage advice she received from PLI Director Norton Grubb about

“The best classroom management plan or device is an engaging lesson plan.”

When Patricia Newsome receives her ed.D. in educational Leadership in May 2009, the Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) graduate will already have logged 35 years as an educational leader.

“In the world of educational leadership, one of the many things administrators learn quickly is that your world is full of politics,” says news-ome. “It’s even truer for urban administrators,

especially superintendents, where politics is an every day occurrence.”

She remembers one of her earliest political encounters as an administrator in Fresno Unified School District when a court-approved voluntary integration plan was imple-mented in 1978.

“the tensions were high in the community and emotions were heated and vocal,” she says. “the superintendent and other district leaders never blamed the courts or rejected the reasons for the need to implement the plan,” says newsome. “they worked hard and long hours doing what was right for students throughout the district.”

She left Fresno to become an associate superintendent in Southern California, and then settled in Sacramento in 1996, where she served as deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the California State Depart-ment of education under Delaine eastin, and held other high profile district-level positions.

When the Grant Joint Union high School District super-intendent retired in 2007, the school board selected newsome as its interim superintendent to lead the district through a difficult unification process; once again she

Green Oaks Academy Elementary92.9% FRPM 100% non-White 83.9% eLL

26 connected

faced many challenges. once the unification process was com-pleted, newsome chose to help other educators by returning to education consulting.

Among her many accomplishments at the helm in the Grant dis-trict was helping lift schools out of program improvement status; transitioning district staff through a contentious unification pro-cess with three other districts; and helping to employ data-based systems to support instructional and curriculum decisions, which lead to remarkable growth on student achievement scores.

As a consultant, newsome has served as an external evalua-tor for California’s Immediate Intervention for Underperforming Schools Initiative, and provided mentoring and coaching for site-level school administrators.

“there is not one administrator I know that does not want to be accountable for student achievement,” says newsome, “but we must have good information and accurate data from all sources

including schools and the department of education to make the right decisions about educational programs that will support high student achievement.”

Communicating and educating leaders to deal with the complex politics of education is, in part, what brought her to JDP.

“the ability to come together in a strong learning environment with peers on a regular and voluntary basis is one of the most powerful experiences education leaders can undertake,” she says. “It not only gave me good information to make improve-ments in my district, but it gave me the a stronger foundation to work with stakeholders and to challenge policymakers in their efforts to improve education.”

—SC

(Note: The Leadership for Educational Equity Program replaced the Joint Doctoral Program in Leadership for Educational Equity in 2007.)

how school budgets need to reflect an administrator’s values and beliefs. “It

sounds obvious,” says Audap, “but a lot of people don’t do it that way. They

let the program define their values.”

An independent study of PLI released in March concluded that the mod-

el program met its objective of preparing administrators to serve as leaders

in urban school settings as well as address the issues of race and class. The

evaluation also highlighted the fact that PLI graduates “are most confident

of their ability to develop schools that are safe, secure and respectful for all

students and adult personnel.”

A safe and secure school environment may be the elephant in the prover-

bial room of urban schooling. Without one, GSE graduates, who value com-

munity, networks, teaching for understanding and with culturally relevant

materials, among other things, can’t be as successful. “You can theorize

about education all you want,” Nasir states succinctly. “Can you create a

successful educational space?”

Just a mile and a half from Learning Without Limits, Maxwell Park

Elementary School commands a stately presence at the top of a hill among

evergreens and other types of trees that line Fleming and Monticello streets

in east Oakland. Until this year, however, its exterior masked an interior

with a poorly lit cafeteria, bathrooms that may or may not have soap, paper

towels or toilet paper and other telltale signs of decay. Before its incubation

year in 2007, fights broke out almost daily between kids from Maxwell Park

and a neighboring school, Sherman Elementary, which closed because of

dwindling enrollment in 2007.

Only about a fourth of Maxwell Park’s teachers remained when Principal

Mary-Louise Newling took the helm of the newly reconstituted school last

Maxwell Park Elementary73.0% FRPM 99.4% non-White 19.5% eLL

Winter 2008 27

Assistant Principal earl Walls and Principal Mary-Louise newling are helping to raise hope at Maxwell Park.Photo: Steven Cohen

28 connected

Zareen Poonen Levien was moving on a fast-track in the high tech industry when she found herself volunteering in an elementary school classroom.

“I had just been promoted to manager at yahoo! when I started realizing that I wasn’t fulfilled by the goal of increasing profits for the company,” she says.

So she took advantage of their program to volunteer in a public school and began work-ing with kids one hour a week, soon finding it much more exciting than her day job.

“I found it very fulfilling to work in a school,” she says. “It was magical to see the process of learning.”

Making that magic is now her full-time occupation. After leaving yahoo! Levien taught high school on an emergency credential for one year, and then decided to apply to UC Berkeley’s Developmental teacher education (Dte) program. Several aspects of the master’s and credential path appealed to her, including the opportunity to work with several different supervising teachers and to learn about being a teacher researcher.

Levien chose elementary school teaching because she felt she could effect more change by instructing younger kids. “So much of the world is new to them,” she says. “they’ve never heard of multiplication or been on the BARt train. I love being the person who teaches them about those things.”

Levien incorporates a number of lesson plans in her class that she first witnessed as a stu-dent teacher in her Dte placements. her third graders learn geography through a “game show,” where two teams compete to name areas of interest on the map of California. they also learn “how to play the game.” She starts by having the students talk about the best way to react when a team member doesn’t get the right answer. But that doesn’t happen very often: her students are sharp and well-prepared, identifying almost every region, city and river on the map she points to.

Levien also sings songs with her third-graders, bringing to her school the curriculum she learned in the Guitars in the Classroom course that Dte offers. “I can’t help but include music in what I do,” says Levien, who sings in a band called Los Boleros. “Music is a sneaky way to teach because the students don’t even realize they’re learning. they get so excited by it. It’s also a great release when they come in from recess.”

the children sing a song about division: “Welcome to the Islands Where We Divide by Four.” they are so engaged that some of them click their tongues to the beat between vers-es. they also learn geography by singing a song to the tune of “the Wheels on the Bus.”

Many of the students in Levien’s class are facing problems that are tough for people of any age to cope with. one boy I spoke with has a brother who has already been in jail and is now hospitalized in a drug treatment program. Despite the challenges the students deal with, Levien creates a calm and warm atmosphere in her room. “I work a lot on community building,” she says. “We talk about how to cool off if you’re angry, how to problem-solve when two students get into a conflict.”

—Zack Rogow

César Chávez Elementary80.5% FRPM 98.6% non-White 74.4% eLL “Music is a sneaky

way to teach because the students don’t even realize they’re learning.”

Below, families and staff recite the school vision statement at a Learning Without Limits family night.Photo: Peg Skorpinski

28 connected

year. But with support from Audap; Earl Walls, a 2004 PLI gradu-

ate who serves as the school’s assistant principal; new teachers,

including 2008 DTE graduates Patrick Hamilton and Alice Paal;

and a new safety officer, Newling believes that Maxwell Park has

a fresh look and feel just two months into the new school year.

“There’s a brightness and hope that wasn’t here before,”

says Newling, who hails from Trinidad. “Everyone has chosen

to be here. There’s much more interaction between students

and staff. Everyone is more engaged. There’s a whole different

expectation.”

Walls says that ultimately success comes back to serving

students and parents. “Some students feel that there’s not

much available to them beyond the borders of their individual

communities,” says Walls, who has held several administrative

positions with Oakland schools. “Part of what I picked up from

PLI is that we have to break down those barriers and open their

eyes, that there’s a whole world out there and they can make an

impact in it.”

When I returned to Learning Without Limits in late Octo-

ber, there was fresh evidence that the tone of that small school

was on the rise, too. Warm relationships and a caring commu-

nity of support permeated the classrooms and grounds. Willis

playfully hugged her young students goodbye. Herrera spoke in

English or Spanish with the parents and guardians there to pick

up their children, and exchanged high fives with his students

as they exited the classroom. Other Learning Without Limits

teachers conversed easily with Principal Fuchs in a nearby

courtyard.

An hour later, students, families and staff mingled comfort-

ably together over a pizza dinner at a family reading night in the

old Jefferson School auditorium. Then they stood together, and

with the accompanying gestures, recited the new school’s vision

statement:

We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us as we grow into

leaders who are passionate and care about making our world better. We are

equipped with skills and knowledge, filled with curiosity, and we know that

even when we face challenges we will achieve.

During a lull in the program, I asked Willis if she was in it for

the long haul. Without hesitation, she told me that she could

not imagine doing anything else.

“There’s a brightness and hope that wasn’t here before… There’s a whole different expectation.”

Winter 2008 29

30 connected

alumni

wanted to study how to create more effective school organizations, and

how to use policy to create conditions that would help teachers become

more effective. This led her to the Graduate School of Education; and she

graduated with a Ph.D. in Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evalu-

ation (POME) in May 2007.

Within POME, she found the faculty and peers to be accessible, en-

gaging and influential. Now more than 2,000 miles away, Russell admits

to moments of nostalgia when thinking about her time at GSE, particu-

larly within her research group led by her faculty-advisor Judith Warren

Little. Russell says that the weekly research group gave her an opportu-

nity to receive critical review from peers, but also develop a community.

After classes ended, the advising continued in informal settings, such as

over drinks at nearby Triple Rock Brewery.

Diverse research experiences at Berkeley, such as working with As-

sistant Professor Cynthia Coburn and at Policy Analysis for California

Education (PACE), fueled Russell’s love for research. “When I first en-

tered the program at Berkeley, I was not as passionate about research as I

am now,” Russell explains. “Having opportunities for different research

experiences as a student helped me clarify my future goals. I realized I

wanted to be in a position that provided significant support for main-

taining a research agenda.”

Following in Little’s footsteps has led Russell to connect shifts in

policy with the real work that happens in schools. One of her multiple

research strands is a continuation of her dissertation work, examin-

ing how shifts in societal expectations, as well as policy, contributed to

kindergarten’s shift from a developmental, play-based year to serious,

academic instruction. Another strand focuses on the extent to which

standards-based accountability policies influence the work of teachers

and district leaders.

Going full circle, Russell is now teaching future policy researchers

and supporting students in mentored research experiences. She strives

to create the type of rigorous, engaging and communal experience that

she experienced in the GSE.

—Joseph Bui

Spotlight

Jennifer russellPittsburgh Steals her

GSe Assistant Professor Cynthia Coburn, left, and Rutgers University Associate Professor of education Beth Rubin (Ph.D. ’01) reunite in new york.

BeAR Affair: Quantitative Methods and evaluation students, graduates and affiliates surround BeAR Director Mark Wilson in new york.

30 connected

Sitting in her office at the University of Pittsburgh,

Associate Professor Jennifer Russell reminisces about

where she would have been on a Friday afternoon

just a couple of years ago.

In a lot of ways, life would not be that different.

She would still be conducting research, interacting

with colleagues and unwinding after a long week of

rigorous yet rewarding classes… only as a Berkeley

Graduate School of Education student instead. To

Russell, the parallel isn’t surprising. She credits

those GSE days with preparing her for a position that

she calls a “perfect match for my skills and interests”

and one she “absolutely loves.”

Russell had previously taught for eight years as

a classroom instructor and teacher leader. Frus-

trated by the slow pace of reform within schools, she

AErA Annual Meeting new York reception

Winter 2008 31

…class notesIf you would like to submit a Class Note please fill out the form at gse.berkeley.edu/admin/communications/classnotes.html. Class Notes for future issues must reach us by October1, 2009.

1940sCaroline Self, teaching credential ’42, stud-

ied Chinese brush painting for 30 years and

taught art in the San Diego City Schools and

at the San Diego Museum

of Art Children’s Program.

With her daughter, she is the

author of Chinese Brush Paint-

ing: A Hands-on Introduction

to Traditional Art, a detailed,

step-by-step textbook for

teaching children the art

and background. She has a new contract to

write a similar and longer book for adults on

the same subject.

Betty Riley Perry, M.A. ’48, is a retired

teacher and counselor of 37 years. Since 1985

she has served in the Older Women’s League as

an advocate for senior and women’s issues at

the Capitol in Sacramento. “It is fascinating

trying to work for fairness and justice,” says

Perry, 85. “This takes all of my earlier skills and

then some.”

1950sJustin (Rick) Bardellini, 1927–2007, Ph.D.

’50, a mathematics teacher, district adminis-

trator and superintendent, died on December

20, 2007 at age 80. A resident of Moraga, Bardel-

lini was a classroom mathematics teacher,

school district administrator in the Mt. Diablo

Unified School District and the Livermore Uni-

fied School District, and superintendent of the

Fairfield Schools. Bardellini is survived by his

five children and nine grandchildren.

1960sRonald Loos, M.A. Adminis-

trative Services Credential ’63,

is a retired educator. He previ-

ously served as vice principal

of Mt. Diablo High School;

district office administrator, San Ramon Valley

Unified School District; principal, Stone Valley

Middle School; and principal, at San Ramon’s

Neil Armstrong School. Loos is currently the

president of the Diablo Vista Retired Teachers

Association.

Karen O’Connell, teaching credential

’64, serves as the State and Federal Grants

Coordinator for the Mt. Healthy City Schools

in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jacki Ruby, teaching credential ’65, is a

retired East Bay elementary and middle school

teacher. She was a member of the Berkeley Fed-

eration of Teachers executive board for two de-

cades, and served as its president for six years.

She was also on the executive board of the

California Federation of Teachers; president of

the Early Childhood/K–12 Counsel, represent-

ing 55,000 teachers; and acted as the legislative

director for the California Alliance for Retired

Americans until this year. Ruby was elected

to the Alameda County Board of Education in

’02, where she serves as president, and is also a

member of the Alameda Child Care Planning

Commission.

Richard Rystrom, Ed.D. ’68, is serving a

two-year term as a Peace Corps volunteer in

Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine.

1970sJoseph Adwere-Boamah, Ph.D. Higher Education

’70, is an assistant profes-

sor at California’s Alliant

International University

Graduate School of Educa-

tion. He retired as Assistant Superintendent

of Planning, Research and Policy Development

for the Oakland Unified School District in

2000. He recently presented a paper on the

social consequences of testing in West African

countries at the Sixth Conference of the Inter-

national Test Commission in Liverpool.

Frieda Winnick, B.A. and credential ’70, is

a teacher in Marin, where she is the secretary

for the Marin Coalition and the program chair-

person for the Marin chapter of the National

Women’s Political Caucus. During the sum-

mer, she managed a drama camp.

Joan Kramer, elementary credential ’71, is in

charge of 50 school libraries as a Coordinating

Field Librarian for Los Angeles Unified School

District’s Local District Six.

John Thelin, Ph.D. History of Education

’73, is a University of Kentucky professor. The

National Education Association selected his

article “Expectations and Reality in American

Higher Education” as the higher education

and democracy article of the year.

Regan McMahon, M.S.

’76, dabbled in substitute

teaching before entering the

field of journalism, eventu-

ally becoming an editor at

the San Francisco Chronicle in

‘84, where she currently serves as the Deputy

Books director, a book critic, features writer

and commentator. In ’07, McMahon published

her first book, Revolution in the Bleachers: How Par-

ents Can Take Back Family Life in a World Gone Crazy

Over Youth Sports.

Catherine Parrish, secondary teaching

credential ’76, became a high school teacher

and developed a curriculum with her students

called “Ending World Hunger,” along with a

network of clubs called “Youth Ending Hunger”

that spread throughout California. After seven

years of teaching, she joined a global NGO fo-

cused on reducing the infant mortality rate. She

now serves as an international consultant.

Janine Collins, teaching credential ’77, is a

sales manager for Pearson’s digital curriculum

division. In her free time, she volunteers for

Democrats for America, Habitat for Humanity

and the Episcopal Church.

Charles Vella, Ph.D. Counseling Psychology

’77, has worked at Kaiser Permanente Medi-

cal Center for more than 30 years, where he is

currently director of the Neuropsychological

Services Department of Psychiatry. Vella had

previously served at Kaiser as the chief psy-

chologist and behavioral health manager.

Timothy White, Ph.D.

’77, is the new chancellor

of UC Riverside. He was

previously president of

the University of Idaho,

and worked as a faculty

member in physiology, kinesiology and human

biodynamics at the University of Michigan,

UC Berkeley and Oregon State University,

where he also served as provost and interim

president.

John Lee, Ed.D. Higher Education ’79, is

the president and founder of JBL Associates, a

consulting firm. Since 1985 the firm has grown

to 13 employees who are responsible for a wide

range of projects, most in postsecondary edu-

cation. Currently, they are leading a project

called Community College Can for the U.S.

Department of Education.

32 connected32 connected

John Martin, Ph.D. Counseling Psychol-

ogy ’89, is a family and individual therapist in

Redwood City, where he works to improve the

quality of life for those living on the peninsula,

one family at a time.

Nancy Skinner, M.A.

’89, is the new assembly-

woman for the East Bay's

14th Assembly District.

Skinner, an East Bay

Regional Park District

Board member and

former Berkeley City Council member, bested

a competitive field in the Democratic Primary

on June 3 and ran unopposed in the general

election in November.

1990sDebbie Schotanus, M.A. DTE ’93, spends

countless hours volunteering at the schools

her three children attend in Calgary, Canada.

Laurie Olsen, Ph.D. Social and Cultural

Studies ’95, recently retired as executive direc-

tor of California Tomorrow after 16 years.

Michael Cohen, Ph.D. Human Development

and Education ’98, is a neuropsychologist with

his own practice in Norwalk, CT where he re-

sides with his wife and their three daughters.

Theo Dawson, M.A. Human Develop-

ment ’98, Ph.D. Human Development ’98, is

president of Developmental Testing Service, a

company that is currently developing alterna-

tive approaches to conventional large-scale

testing. She retired from teaching in 2006 but

has continued to publish research articles and

work with several doctoral students.

Terry Ratcliff, Ed.D. Higher Education ’98,

is Dean of Continuing Studies at Whitworth

University, overseeing degree programs for

working adults and developing the univer-

sity’s off-site and online programs.

Mira-Lisa Katz, Ph.D. ELLC ’99, is an as-

sociate professor in the English department

at Sonoma State University. Since

’03, Katz has also been a member

of the CSU Expository Reading

and Writing Curriculum Task

Force, helping to create a writing

course now taught in one third of

public high schools in the state of

California.

Sheryl Morgan, Ph.D.

Higher Education ’79, has

launched a new interview

series at TimelyTalks.com.

Upcoming interviews will

address sibling and friend

relations, family dynamics

at holiday time and other topics. She lives in

Point Reyes Station.

1980sRichard Silberg, multiple subjects cre-

dential ’80, M.A. Language and Literacy ’90,

has spent 28 years teaching arts in Berkeley

schools. He was awarded a fellowship which

provides funding for secondary art teachers to

engage in a study related to their discipline.

Silberg is currently working on an original

theatre piece with his students.

Henry Mitchell, Ph.D. Educational Psychol-

ogy ’82, is an ordained minister in the Chris-

tian Church (Disciples of Christ) and served

as an assistant pastor at University Christian

Church in Berkeley before starting a Seniors

Ecumenical Ministry at Shell Ridge Commu-

nity Church in Walnut Creek.

Sharon Gocke, Ph.D. Educational Adminis-

tration ’83, has been awarded several research

fellowships, including the National Endow-

ment for the Humanities Fellowship and a

Ford Foundation Fellowship. She teaches phi-

losophy and humanities at Napa Valley College

and is also a practicing attorney.

Karen Dyer, M.A., credential Educational

Administration ’85, is Group Director, Educa-

tion and Nonprofit Sector, for the Center for

Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North

Carolina. She also serves as president of the

National Staff Development Council.

Valerie Stone, credential BAWP ’85, is a

teacher who doubles as mom to three sons who

went to Stanford.

Rodney Maack, M.A. credential ’87, has been

teaching high school German and English

since 1994 in Portland, Oregon.

Sharon Sacks, credential/Social Studies ’87,

is a studio teacher in Los Angeles, providing

instruction for students within the entertain-

ment industry.

James Chapman, teaching credential ’88,

retired after teaching for more than 15 years

and aspires to perform as a singer and guitar

player.

Jerome Gourdine, PLI ’01, was honored as

one of America’s “most

collaborative” public

school principals,

receiving a $5,000 grant

from MetLife. The Frick Middle School prin-

cipal plans to use the grant for a program

that guarantees his students admission to

the Cal State system.

2000sGibson Fay-LeBlanc, M.A. MUSE ’00, is

executive director of the Telling Room, a non-

profit writing center that helps youth age 8–18

develop their writing talents.

Ming-Lun Ho, M.A. MACSME ’00, taught

high school math and computer science

for three and a half years before joining the

mathematics faculty at Chabot College. He

was recently elected president of the Academic

Senate at Chabot College.

Jeff Rhode, M.A. ELLC ’00, is executive direc-

tor of development for UC Berkeley’s College

of Engineering, following six years in a similar

role at the Haas School of Business. He and his

wife have two young children.

Greta Vollmer, Ph.D. ELLC ’00, is an as-

sociate professor of Applied Linguistics in

the English Department at Sonoma State

University. She was selected as a faculty expert

for the Fulbright Senior Specialists project in

Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she offered

professional development in Teaching English

as a Foreign Language (TEFL) to secondary and

tertiary teachers from throughout the country.

Michael Meyer, ARLLP ’01, chronicled his

experiences as a volunteer English teacher in

China in a recently published book entitled

The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in

the Vanishing Backstreets of a City

Transformed. He is on a book tour

which has included appear-

ances on a number of television

programs including “The Today

Show,” “CBS This Morning,”

and “CNN.”

Beth Rubin, Ph.D. Social and Cultural Studies

’01, is an associate professor at Rutgers Univer-

sity and recently authored Civic Education For

Diverse Citizens in Global Times: Rethinking Theory

and Practice.

Allyson Werner, M.A. credential DTE ’01,

is an admissions counselor at the California

Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

She also serves as a mentor through the Big

Brothers Big Sisters program.

Pamela Paek, Ph.D. QME ’02, is a research

associate at the Charles Dana Center at the

University of Texas, Austin where she focuses

on researching and evaluating projects while

also building relationships and partner-

ships with researchers and practitioners to

improve teaching and learning in secondary

mathematics.

Namita Jacob, Ph.D. JDPSE ’02, is a con-

sultant in India and serves as the regional

educational specialist in nearby nations, help-

ing to design and develop programs and create

training curriculums.

Lance McCready, Ph.D. Social and Cultural

Studies ’02, is an assistant professor of urban

education at the Ontario Institute for Studies

in Education of the University of Toronto.

He received a Ford Foundation post-doctoral

fellowship for the ’06-’07 academic year. He

currently serves as chair for the Queer Studies

SIG of AERA.

Susan Graubard Archuletta, M.A. PLI

’03, is an educator and musician who recently

released her debut CD and album The New Age:

All Around on Raymond Dumont Records.

Felicity Bensch, M.A. PLI ’03, is an instruc-

tional specialist at Richmond’s DeJean Middle

School and El Cerrito’s Portola Middle School.

She formerly served as assistant principal at

Richmond’s Kennedy High School for four years.

Maisha Fischer, Ph.D.

ELLC ’03, an assistant pro-

fessor of Language, Liter-

acy and Culture at Emory

University is the author of

the just-published Black

Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspec-

tives, an innovative approach to understanding

the complex and multi-dimensional perspec-

tives of Black literate lives in the United States.

Julia Menard-Warwich, Ph.D. ’04, is a

Berkeley Graduate Fellowship recipient. She

writes about her experience in “Life and Lan-

guage,” a “Grad Spotlight” feature on the UC

Berkeley’s Graduate Division website.

Fred Brill, Ed.D. POME ’05, became superin-

tendent of the Lafayette School District on Sep-

tember 1. A former special education and high

school English teacher, Brill spent 12 years in

the Lafayette School District; three as the as-

sistant principal at Stanley Middle School and

nine as Stanley’s principal. In 2005, Brill served

as a network executive in the Oakland Unified

School District while finishing his doctorate.

Kysa Nygreen, Ph.D. Social and Cultural

Studies ’05, is an associate professor in the

Education Department at UC Santa Cruz,

where she conducts research on civic identity

formation and civic engagement practices

among marginalized youth.

Christopher Wu, Ph.D. EMST ’05, is the

Director of Research and Strategy at the Public

Consulting Group, Inc., where he has worked

since 2005 – the same year Wu finished writing

his dissertation: “Thinking Through New

Vocationalism: Examining Career Academy

Students’ Problem Solving and School Perfor-

mance.” He currently lives with his wife and

step-daughter in Albany, California.

Lydia Liu, Ph.D. Quanti-

tative Methods and Evalu-

ation ’06, is an associate

research scientist at Edu-

cational Testing Service in

Princeton, New Jersey and

is working with GSE Professor Marcia Linn.

Indigo Esmonde, Ph.D. Cognition and

Development ’06, is assistant professor in Math-

matics Education, Ontario Institute for Studies

in Education at the University of Toronto.

Jacob Long, M.A. Athletes and Academic

Achievement ’07, is an assistant coach for the

UC Santa Cruz men’s soccer team and has

coached many of the top youth programs in

Santa Cruz and Monterey County.

Sarah Bruschi, M.A. MASCME ’07, is a

researcher in the Research and Assessment

Department of the Oakland Unified School

District.

Cliff Hong, M.A. PLI ’08, was named one of 20

emerging young leaders by Phi Delta Kappan

for his leadership as a teacher at Edna Brewer

School in Oakland Unified.

Maris Thompson, M.A. ’03, Ph.D. ’08, is an

assistant professor at CSU Chico’s College of

Education in the area of Literacy and Culture.

Winter 2008 33

Karen Pezzetti, MUSE ’05, an 11th and 12th grade English

teacher at the Youth Empowerment School (YES), was hon-

ored as one of two Oakland Unified School District Teachers

of the Year along with 14 other Alameda County teachers at

an October 16 celebration at CSU East Bay. Pezzetti has been

instrumental in helping her students apply to four-year col-

leges in record numbers. She co-founded and facilitates an

innovative leadership class, and she has invented a system

for tracking her students’ progress through her courses’

learning objectives that is greatly accelerating their learn-

ing. She, along with the rest of the YES staff, is also working

hard to help close the racial opportunity gap by bringing

critical race theory into the classroom and practicing cul-

turally relevant pedagogy.

34 connected34 connected

friends

When GSE Advisory Board member Joyce

Ng dogsits for vacationing neighbors in

her Pacific Palisades neighborhood, she

requests donations to the Academic Tal-

ent Development Program (ATDP) instead

of payment. To date, ATDP has received

hundreds of dollars — and some great

publicity — as a result of Ng’s ingenuity.

“As a mom and a citizen I’m concerned

about public education in our state,” says

Ng, who owns Springboard Marketing, and

received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and MBA

from Columbia University. “I’m impressed

by the work ATDP and GSE do to ensure

that kids achieve their potential, regardless

of their socioeconomic background.”

Principal Leadership Institute Cohort 8 has achieved its goal of

100 percent participation in its endowed scholarship effort, and

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will match all their

gifts on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

While many Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) grads

give to the scholarship fund, Cohort 8 is the first class with all

members contributing.

“A 100 percent student participation in fundraising is a

great calling card as we speak with potential funders,” says

PLI Academic Coordinator Lynda Tredway. “We hope to reach

at least 75 percent PLI alumni participation in our fundrais-

ing effort this academic year.” Tredway, PLI Faculty Director

Norton Grubb and his wife, Rikki, and Dean David Pearson also

support the PLI Scholarship Fund.

PLI founding donor Kenneth E. Behring has pledged to

provide scholarship support to all PLI students for 10 years. As

he nears the end of his pledge, in 2010, he has wisely challenged

PLI to seek new support from individuals, corporations and

foundations. Endowment support will ensure that scholar-

ships are available to PLI students far into the future.

Said Cohort 8 member Dave Samson, “My wife and I did not

hesitate in making an ongoing contribution to the PLI Schol-

arship fund. There is no possible way without the Behring

scholarship that I could have pursued my dream of leading in

our educational system while simultaneously being a father,

husband and teacher.”

A total of 49 percent of PLI students, all of whom commit

to working for at least four years in urban public schools, are

persons of color. Many are the first in their families to attend

college; graduate school can be a stretch without a financial

incentive. “Without the scholarship, our pool of future princi-

pals would be much less diverse,” says Tredway. “School leaders

must reflect the demographics of the students in their schools.”

The Chancellor’s match is part of a new program to match

gifts to endowed need-based scholarships from current and

former faculty and staff, current students, and the spouses of

current and former faculty and staff.

For more information about the PLI Endowed Scholarship

Fund or the Chancellor’s matching program, please call the

GSE Development Office at (510) 643-9784.

Spotlight

PLI Cohort 8 Supports endowed Scholarship Fund; Chancellor Birgeneau Provides Match

Joyce ng’s Canine Crusade

PLI Cohort 8 students with benefactors Kenneth and Patricia Behring

Phot

o: P

eg S

korp

insk

i

Winter 2008 35

Alumni and friends of the Graduate School of Education set a record this year in

contributions to scholarships for aspiring educators. More than 68 scholarships were

awarded at the fifth annual Scholarship Tea held at the Hotel Durant on April 30.

Dean David Pearson welcomed donors who were as thrilled to meet the students

as the students were to be able to thank their donors in person.

For the fifth consecutive year, GSE scholarships were matched dollar for dollar

(up to $50,000) by a very special anonymous donor. The School of Education community

is grateful for every gift to the scholarship fund, which provides much-needed sup-

port to students pursuing careers in education, often in underserved urban schools.

Amy Bullis, a scholarship recipient working toward a Master’s and Credential in

Science and Math Education, while balancing work and student teaching, was among

the many grateful for the support to GSE scholarships and fellowships. “Instead of

paying student loans, I will be able to pay forward by being the best teacher I can be,”

said Bullis.

Investment in future teachers and education leaders has a tremendous impact, for

our students and for the thousands of children, families and communities they will

serve. To make a scholarship gift, use the enclosed envelope, make a secure online gift

at givetocal.berkeley.edu/makeagift/graduate or call the GSE Development Office

at (510) 643-9784.

Spring Scholarship Tea Brews Gratitude

Ng and her family — who began

contributing to ATDP in memory of her

brother Thomas, who died in 2003 and

received a B.A. in Mechanical Engineer-

ing and an M.A. in Materials Science

from UC Berkeley — as well as their

friends have made it possible for four

cohorts of elementary school students

from low-performing urban schools to

participate in after-school book clubs,

receiving their own copies of the books

they read, according to ATDP Director

Nina Gabelko.

“When I suggested to one of these

students that he write his name in a book

in ink, he replied, ‘I’m going to keep this

book for ever and ever,” says Gabelko.

“Joyce’s dedication and creativity ener-

gize everyone she works with.”

And the GSE thanks Ng and her

canine pals for their dogged support.

Mary Jane Brinton and ned Flanders surrounded by student

scholarship recipientsPhoto: Peg Skorpinski

36 connected

friends

California Preparatory Academy (CAL Prep), the

charter school co-designed by UC Berkeley and

Aspire Public Schools, has moved its upper grades

to the former St. Joseph the Worker parochial school

building in Berkeley.

“After three years in operation, we outgrew the

old site,” says Dean David Pearson. “As a Gates-

funded early college secondary school, we’ve always

had the goal of finding a facility close enough to

campus to encourage CAL Prep’s engagement with

campus and the campus’s engagement with CAL

Prep.”

CAL Prep’s oldest students – the 10th graders –

now have the opportunity to take classes at Berkeley

City College (BCC) and to access learning resources

on the UC Berkeley campus. Both BCC and the

Cal campus are within walking distance of the St.

Joseph’s site. CAL Prep’s grade 6 remains at the

original site at the former Golden Gate Elementary

in Oakland along with an elementary Aspire charter

school, Berkeley-Maynard Academy.

CAL Prep’s long-term goal is to reunite the

lower and upper grades in a single state-of-the-art

facility, a real challenge in communities where real

estate costs are high. “We want all our students

close to campus, working closely with Berkeley and

BCC faculty, but St. Joseph’s holds only about 200

students,” says Pearson. “We need to start preparing

the younger students for college as early as possible.

Ninth grade is sometimes too late for students who

fell behind in the earliest grades.”

Aspire and UC Berkeley are seeking donors

to help with the building project and with other

programs to enrich the academic experiences of our

students, who aspire to be the first generation in

their families to attend college. For more informa-

tion please call the GSE Development Office at

(510) 643-9784.

36 connected

CAL Prep relocates

In memory of her mother and in honor of her 45th class reunion,

GSE Advisory Board member Carolyn Sparks has pledged $25,000 to

endow the Malvina Walford Morledge scholarship at the School of

Education.

Morledge contributed art to many campus publications and

returned to Cal (where she graduated) for her teacher credentials,

according to Sparks. She taught at the high school and junior col-

lege levels until she married and moved to Las Vegas.

“After her death, I established an annual scholarship in her

name,” says Sparks, “and I saw my class reunion as a perfect oppor-

tunity to reestablish that scholarship. Continuing to support the

best and the brightest is a longtime goal of mine, especially since

I’ve served on the System of Higher Education in Nevada. Getting

reacquainted with classmates has been a bonus.”

GSE Dean David Pearson, also a member of the Class of ’63, made

a generous reunion gift to several endowed fellowships. “I’m excited

about our class theme of support for undergraduate education,”

says Pearson. “If we can encourage Berkeley undergraduates to enter

teaching, many will return for graduate study. I’m not surprised

that preparing undergraduates for public service, including careers

in K–12 education, is so close to my classmates’ hearts.”

Alumna Alison Ogden of Healdsburg is also a generous donor to

GSE in honor of her 45th Class Reunion. “It’s simply time for me to

pay back the university,” she said.

Many thanks to the members of the Class of ’63.

carolyn sparks’ Touch of Class

Major Grants Fund GSE’s Work in Urban Professional Development

GSE’s Project IMPACT and Center for Urban School Leadership

(CUSL) have received major grants to support professional

development for teachers and administrators.

The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation (ADVF) of Jackson-

ville, Florida, provided $150,000 for IMPACT’s singular model,

which convenes small groups of teachers — especially novices

— at school sites for professional support. Launched in 2003 by

GSE faculty with support from Mr. and Mrs. William Brinton

and the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation, IMPACT

supports GSE credential graduates and other teachers serving

in the Bay Area’s low-income, low-performing schools.

Research shows that strong teachers are the single most

important factor determining student success, but one third of

new teachers leave within the first three years of teaching, with

half gone by the fifth. IMPACT seeks to reverse the trend; to

date 200 teachers have been served by the program.

IMPACT participants explore their own questions about

teaching assisted by an external facilitator (usually a UC Berke-

ley doctoral student), as well as a stipend to recognize their in-

vestment of time and energy. Over the school year, participants

convene quarterly for intensive professional development and

an opportunity to share what they are learning.

Participants report that IMPACT has inspired them to

improve their teaching and hold fast to the ideal of making

a difference. IMPACT also benefits GSE by maintaining ties

to teachers in the field and by grooming doctoral students to

become effective teacher educators.

“Any group that receives a grant from the secondary educa-

tion program has overcome long odds,” said William Keator,

AVDF vice president for programs. “We were impressed with

[IMPACT's co-directors] Marnie Curry, Elisa Salasin, and all the

IMPACT teachers during our site visit. We were also attracted

to the potential for expansion to other schools.”

The Walter and Elise Haas Fund has provided $100,000, with

the possibility of an additional $125,000 in subsequent years, to

build the capacity of CUSL (see page 6). The funding supports

the hire of Center Director Daphannie Stephens and supports

the development of two of the Center’s pilot programs, the

Leadership Studio and the Research-into-Practice Institute.

These programs help district-level administrators cultivate,

support and evaluate school-based leadership, and provide

them with data to guide decision-making. Stephens will work

on continuity planning with faculty director Norton Grubb

and coordinator Lynda Tredway to strengthen new programs,

and create a plan for evaluating Center activities.

With the eight-year-old Principal Leadership Institute

(PLI) as its flagship, the Center provides a complement of

professional development programs to Bay Area districts, from

those for aspiring principals to those for veteran administra-

tors seeking fresh perspectives and access to the latest research.

To date, the Center’s PLI has placed more than 300 principals,

assistant principals and district-level leaders in schools. The

Center’s Coaching Initiative annually coaches 125-150 new prin-

cipals and assistant principals in urban districts.

“The leadership development work of Norton and Lynda,

premised on service to local districts, is nationally respected,

and the Fund is pleased to provide support,” said Anu Greenlee

Cairo, program officer for education at the Walter & Elise Haas

Fund. “Hundreds of administrators in San Francisco now have

access to CUSL’s professional development resources.”

Winter 2008 37

Photo: Steve Cohen

Project IMPACt teachers confer at oakland high.

38 connected

l e a de r ship donor s

$1,000,000 or moreWilliam and Flora Hewlett

FoundationNational Science Foundation

$500,000-$999,999Concord Consortium

$250,000-$499,999The Ford FoundationThe James Irvine FoundationEstate of Grace E. Kern

$100,000-$249,999Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth E. Behring Mary Jane and William Brinton Arthur Vining Davis FoundationWalter and Elise Haas FundEstate of Helen Murphy NeumannStrategic Education Research

$50,000-$99,999Anonymous K and F Baxter Foundation (via

Aspire Public Schools)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

$25,000-$49,999Anonymous Walter S. Johnson FoundationEstate of George Wallace KyteMathematica Policy ResearchCarolyn M. SparksThe Spencer Foundation

$5,000-$9,999Professor Bruce C. FullerKarla and Edward Knapp

$2,500-$4,999Miranda Heller

$1,000-$2,499Karen J. BlankProfessor Emerita

K. Patricia CrossOSKITerry Sweitzer EmmettMargaret E. KiddCarol J. LiuSusan A. PowellPamela Adler RouthGary Steven Valdez

$500-$999Douglas E. and

Judith C. AdamsCeinwen L. CarneyGSE Alumni AssociationManjula and Haragauri N. Gupta,

Ph.D.Penguin Group USA Inc.Carol D. SocAllan and Phyllis Marie TappePatricia and Jeffrey WilliamsLinda C. WingEllen Wragge and

Sara L. Wragge

$250-$499Dr. Srijati Ananda and

Stanley RabinowitzDaniel J. ArchuletaDebrah and Paul BakerDr. Donald B. ChambersRichard C. and

Kathleen T. DavisClifford and Grete EganPles and Lora GriffinThomas and Susie GriffinProfessor W. Norton and

Erica B. GrubbJohn and Marcia Harter

Mary and John B. LeeBarbara Myers MeansSusan Nabeta-BrodskyAustin and Marjorie PrindleNancy and Glenn Rankin, Ph.D.Dr. James E. RichmondJane P. Riede-MeyerhoffShell Oil Company

Foundation Inc.Ada Y. WadaDennis and Jayne Millar Wood

$100-$249Albert M. Adams, Ed.D.Verna J. ArnestAurora C. Barrozo, Ph.D.Carol J. BeaumontJanet and Kenneth BeebeClaire F. BeltramiCatherine and Sanford BermanDr. Ralph M. BerrierAllen E. BlackAnna L. BlackmanSteven A. BrownDr. Gerald J. and

Barbara M. BrunettiLynn J. CadwalladerWilliam and Lois CannadyJoan Cashel and Daniel PyneClark C. and Cheryl Y. ChenAlice Chen Rico and

Rudolph J. RicoBeverly and James ChinNancy T. ChirinosJin Young Choo and Ira W. LitJulie T. ClarfieldBarbara M. ColicinoDr. Isobel ContentoDr. Shirley ConvirsStephanie F. Cowan, Ph.D.Venora F. DeublerGerald L. DunbarWilliam F. Euphrat and

Nancy A. WestonBarry and Toby FernaldDr. Susan K. and David H. FolkmanProfessor Barbara R. FoormanRex and Carol FortuneMargaret L. Gebhard

Judith and Thomas GielowMrs. Rosalie M. GiffordDr. Allan P. GoldDr. and Mrs. William D. GrafftLoren and Claudia GrossiLinda C. HendersonDr. Kenneth J. HolbertJean and Robert HustonHarriett G. JenkinsRichard and Myrna JonesShirley and Harold A.

Jonsson, Ph.D.Jocelyn and Michael KelleherAnn KuchinsJana and Freeman LaneBlake A. LaskyAnne and David ManchesterTeresa and Phillip McLeanFrederick D. Mitchem, Jr.Frederick E. MurrayStanley and Diane NakaharaCarol and David OlsonRuth Shigeko OmatsuHyun-Sook Park and Stanley

YoungDr. Douglas and Linda PenfieldBarbara and Peter PeraccaGeorge and Charlotte PinheiroMary Ann PurvisDavid E. Reagan, Ed.D.Julie Witt ReisDr. Susan and

Steven RichardsonDr. Nancy E. Rogers-Zegarra and

Elias ZegarraDr. Nancy and

Kenneth RollstonAmy and Daniel SchiffCarol and William SchofieldKeith and Anne R. SchroderMadelaine Shellaby and Richard

ShapiroDr. Robert and

Merlene SherwoodRichard J. SilbergSharon B. SmithEllen Fisher SmithJohn P. Smith, III

the Graduate School of education gratefully acknowledges the following individuals, corporations and foundations that generously supported our efforts to advance education and to provide opportunity for all

a n nua l f u nd donor s

38 connected

d o n o r s j u l y 1 , 2 0 0 7, t h r o u g h j u n e 3 0 , 2 0 0 8

Linda and Douglas SuganoDrs. Roslyn and

Donald SutherlandMichael L. Swindell and Christine

M. SilvaDr. Junko T. TanakaItsuko TeradaDr. Robert L. TerrellDr. and Mrs. William J. TibbeyGary and Mary TietzRegi and Stephen TopolYing TsuiDr. Jennifer and

Joseph VilleneuveKevin M. WaescoPaula and Richard WalkerMelinda S. WallaceWilliam Li-Tien WangPenelope and David WarrenChristine and Howard WatkinsMajor Willie and Gudrun WestKathleen V. WhalinProfessor Barbara Y. WhiteProfessor Emeritus

Alan B. WilsonCraig and Kim WilsonProfessor Mark R. Wilson

and Janet S. WilliamsCynthia G. WinshipThomas and Mariol WogamanLeslie Woolley and

Michael RogersDr. Larry J. Wornian and

Mary M. Lanier

$1-$99Penelope P. AdamsWeston M. AltOkai M. Aryee and

Lorraine K. MarchmanRoselyn Bell BaskinDiane G. and Arlo W. BiereAndrea U. Bircher, Ph.D.Marlene A. BottoJeffrey P. Braden, Ph.D.Marlene J. Braverman

and Ernest J. FazioSarah L. Bremer

Helen H. CagampangSusan T. CallenKimberly Capriola-Juza

and Kevin M. JuzaAnn M. CarboneBarbara and Geoffrey CaseBernadette Sun ChiMai Xuan Chung, M.A.David and Beth

Linder CrabtreeJanine L. CroweCarolyn J. DaoustFloyd W. DavisAnita and James DavyGail C. DawsonAnne L. DiPardoEdith W. DonCharles and Susan DornSusan A. DuckworthChristiane Engemann and Thomas

CooperProfessor James and

Anita FlemingJudith and John FrancoBarbara and John GalbraithLidia A. GarciaPeter H. GelpkeLesley GetzElizabeth Goldsmith-Conley and

Thomas M. ConleyJames P. GordonMary M. GraneyJames H. GreenCatherine H. GrossRafael H. Gutierrez, Jr.Tanako HagiwaraCarla B. HardenLaurie R. HarrisonDr. Tadeusz and Jadwiga HaskaDrs. Otto and Grete HeinzMark A. HolmanRobert M. Houghteling and

Elizabeth R. FishelAustin G. HurstDr. Kathleen Hurty and Reverend

David HurtyEileen S. IngenthronJack L. Jackson, Jr.

Bud and Catherine JacobsRalph and Patricia JenningsKenneth and Patricia JohnsonDr. Rita H. JonesRobert A. KahnJoy P. KaiserBrenda G. KangasKarl K. KascaGary and Ilene KatzElizabeth KeithleyAdrienne K. KennedyJeffery and Judith Price KennedyKim F. KitaRichard and Barbara La RueDr. Kenneth and Janet LarsonRobert and Donna LawsonLinda and Stephen LazzareschiJohn A. LeeEarl L. and Dorothy T. MaddoxVirginia D. MaffeoJoseph C. MalloyLinda Jane MarianiCathy and Tom McGowanWilliam and Susan McCarthyProfessor Emeritus

William A. McCormackElizabeth A. MeyerDr. and Mrs. William W. Monahan,

Jr.Dr. Sheryl MorganDr. Judit N. MoschkovichJanuary A. NiceMarilyn and Dennis NixKevin M. O’ConnorDr. Pearl and

Professor Samuel OlinerLinda and Adrian OwnbyL. Leann ParkerDr. Jesse and Maxine PerryPatricia and Willie PlayerKim and Richard PlumridgeS. Peter Poullada and

Nancy A. SheppardFannie and Johnny PrestonWilliam and Midge RentonMorris and Margie RichmanNancy C. RoarkJune and Eugene Roberts

Laurie and Preston RobertsFreda M. RobinsonJoyce Rosenbaum and

Murray HarreschouCarolyn and Douglas RotmanDr. Susan and David RoundsKatherine and Timothy SalterArthur G. SanguinettiCarol D. SaulovichErica ScattergoodDrs. Jack and Diane SchusterLynn and Lawrence SelnaLetitia C. ShelbyMeredith and Jon ShoenbergerJoanne and John ShultzPaul A. Silberstein and

Karen B. GlasserC. Clifford and Kathy SolariAnna M. SontagQingyun Shi and Roger SoohooCynthia A. SpeedRichard and Jane Spencer MillsJamal and Klaudia SplaneMimi and Erich SteadmanTia C. StreeterPatricia and Michael SullivanSola TakahashiBonnie TangDr. Jo Ellyn TaylorJane and Alan TeitelbaumLaura E. TelepCarol J. ThomasAlvin H. Thompson, Ed.D.Elizabeth and Jeffrey ThomsenDenise and Johnny TomSuzanne and

Edward VasgerdsianLori L. Vella, M.A.Elizabeth and Craig WahlErik L. WalukiewiczAllyson L. WernerMallorie and Harold WilkersonFrances and Billy WillmsDr. Keith R. WilsonMary-Alice and Brayton WilsonPamela and Douglas WongChristopher Y. WuGordon Y. Yamamoto

Winter 2008 39

From left, professor David Stern, advisory board member Mike Wood and Aspire Schools President Don Shalvey

Dean Pearson with advisory board chair Miranda heller

40 connected

schol a r ship f u nd donor s

$5,000-$9,999Mara W. Breech FoundationDean P. David and

Mary Alyce PearsonJulie Stevenson and Tom MeyerVictor and Arlene Willits

$2,500-$4,999Robert J. Breuer

$1,000-$2,499Anonymous David and Barbara DanskyHomer and Rosette DawsonAnne and Will GatesProfessor Jack A. GravesFrank and Lenore

Bertagna HeffernanE. Gary Hoachlander, Ph.D.Jeffrey R. LambertMark J. Liebling, M.D. and

Cheryl R. Liebling, Ph.D.Kerri and Mark LubinJoyce E. NgPhi Delta Kappa,

UC Berkeley ChapterRegan Pritzker and Chris OlinRobert and Esther RiceMargaret G. SaulsberryHelen E. SchlichtmannMarilyn and William SelbyMaryEllen and Keith VogtRaynor and Michael VoorhiesLynn and Peter Wendell

$500-$999ChevronTexaco CorporationCathleen A. KennedyDrs. Hermine and

Sumner MarshallNancy C. McLaren-Salsig

$250-$499Dr. Daniel W. KeeMarc and Suzanne SteinMary L. SoltisPatricia H. Wheeler, Ph.D.

$100-$249Joseph and Norma

Adwere-BoamahVerna J. ArnestDr. Louis F. BatmaleWilliam D. BethellAlison G. and Steven P. Burke

Michael and Patricia BuskClaudia Cate and

Branden BickelRobert Kai Cheong ChengDonald and Doris CloudCrail-Johnson FoundationNorma Jo Ann and Gerald CoxSuzanne Mills CrawfordDr. Sid and Marilyn DavidsonToby and Barry FernaldTom FinnProfessor Jesus GarciaDr. Michele GarsideDr. Allan P. GoldChristopher P. HadleyYukiyo R. HayashiMatthew E. HermannJean and Robert HustonFrances KimLlewellyn S. KirbyDiane and John KopchikDorothy and Melvin LembergerRonald E. LeonardDr. Donald F. LundstromDr. Arnethia W. OkeloMarie Luise OttoKathleen and John PetersonJuanita J. PetersonDr. Richard C. PonzioCarol J. RowleyHugh and Aletha SilcoxFrankie and Ronald TempleHeather L. ThompsonAnthony and Siv

Larson WheelerPatricia H. Wheeler, Ph.D.Rebecca Jane Zwick

$1-$99Betty M. ChiuEdward ChuKristin B. CortesLeo R. CroceEdith W. DonKaren Malmstrom EckhartLinda L. FletcherNina L. FloroMargo A. FontesAmanda J. GodleyDr. David R. and

Carole L. HarrisBoris H. GregorySheila M. GurneeDonald L. HaworthDr. Rita H. JonesAnne E. JustJane D. KaasaDrs. Steven and Maya KleinJack T. KohnMichael and Jane Leonard

Ronald and Beverly LoosMaureen A. MaloneyAlexis T. MartinDasil and Kathleen MathewsWilliam and Susan McCarthyStephen A. McMahonMicrosoft CorporationMary E. MolesworthDr. Victoria C. and

Walter K. J. MuiSusan NorthTherese M. PipeElizabeth S. RavenscroftAmy E. RykenJennie F. SavoldelliElizabeth C. ShaferMarilou and John ShankelJonathan W. Shores and

Dr. Jane OsbornDr. Norman and

Cherene UnrauDr. Judith A. Van HoornSuzanne M. Yee

t he h a r ry b. s t e hr me mor i a l f el lowship

Leonore BzikCarne S. ClarkeKristi and Larry CohenJames W. ColeJudge and Mrs. John S. Cooper, Ret.Diane Dimeff and Tom BugnitzWendy James GulleyBlanka KvervkaRose and Dale LockWilliam and Susan McCarthyMichael and Linda O’ConnorLinda and William PardueJohn Edward SenutaAnn Stehr Wilson and

Larry Wilson, Chapter Un Peo Sisterhood

Sally SwartsMr. and Mrs. Walter YeungDaniel J. Zimmerlin

ac a de mic ta l e n t de v elopme n t progr a m

Mei K. and Yi-Tso J.ChenGary A. GriffinStephen Ming Lee and

Diana C. FongJoyce E. NgFrankie and Ronald Temple

pr i ncipa l l e a de r ship i ns t i t u t e schol a r ship f u nd

Larissa K. AdamArnold J. AdreaniKarling Aguilera-FortSusan M. AudapStephen A. BradyGeorge C. BullisMaureen ByrneRayburn CarterDiane ColbornKristen DeandreisGlenn F. DennisSara Cristina DieliNatalie R. EberhardThomas R. FairchildSarah K. GahlCarin D. GeathersProfessor W. Norton and

Erica B. GrubbLaura M. HackelChristine M. HalsteadPatricia A. HarmonKyla R. JohnsonDongshil J. KimJ. Carlisle KimLinda M. KingstonMarilyn Zoller KoralHanna Lee MaMoraima MachadoJonathan J. MayerNicole M. McAuliffeMargaret R. MinicozziHo H. NguyenRobert Shawn PatrickJeanette Perno FentyPsaun-Glov LLCLinda A. RardenMichael RatkewiczMichael P. RayRichard W. ReinhardEllen RellerMarie RingwaldMarisa SantoyoPaulette SaundersNancy S. SchlenkeMichael D. SragoJonathan J. StewartJohn and Kristin TavernettiLynda L. TredwaySusan Valdez CouchMichael P. WalkerEarl L. WallsBecky and Solomon WheatNorman H. WilliamsRichard B. Zapien

40 connected

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF Educationuniversity of california, berkeley

Education for the real worldToo many of our most vulnerable youth are poorly served by to-

day’s urban schools, creating an urgent need for the unparal-

leled intellectual resources that UC Berkeley provides. “Access to

quality education is the civil rights issue of our era,” says educa-

tion journalist John Merrow in the documentary “First to Worst.”

Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education prepares the best, brightest and most committed educators to lead critical change in some of our nation’s most challeng-ing learning environments. Working with award-winning

faculty to hone their skills in urban schools and to examine the

policy and cultural issues that shape education today, our gradu-

ates are well prepared to help today’s highly diverse learners

succeed, changing the world for our young people and our com-

munities.

Investing in the futurePrivate support has an enormous impact on the Graduate School

of Education’s ability to develop a pipeline of education-al leadership throughout California and the nation. We are grateful to the many alumni and friends whose gifts help

us fund graduate student fellowships, faculty chairs, research

on education and programs that bridge theory and practice.

Your support enables scholars and practitioners to explore and

enhance learning for all ages and backgrounds, thereby making

the world a better place.

For more information, please contact:

office of Development and external RelationsGraduate School of Education3627 tolman hall, #1670University of California, BerkeleyBerkeley, California 94720-1670

510.643.9784

To make a gift online and for information on GSE:gse.berkeley.edu/admin/extrel

“Thank you to all who support GSE

scholarships and fellowships. In-

stead of paying back student loans, I

will be able to pay forward by being

the best teacher I can be”

–Amy Bullis, MACSME '09

gse.berkeley.edu

Nonprofit Organization

US Postage

PAiD

University of California3627 TOLMAN HALL #1670

BERKELEy, CA 94720–1670

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF Educationuniversity of california, berkeley