AISR logo


Building Smart Education Systems



Voices in Urban Education

Archives

Skills for Smart Systems
VUE Number 17, Fall 2007

| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |

Author Biographies
Joanna Brown

Joanna Brown is director of education organizing at the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago. She works primarily on overcrowding, parent participation and school-community relations. Joanna has 30 years of experience in community organizing, community journalism and public relations; urban affairs and politics. She was professionally and personally involved in Chicago's first school reform elections, serving two terms (1989-93) as a Local School Council member. Among other endeavors Brown worked as a press aide for Mayor Harold Washington (1983-87), taught journalism at Northwestern University (1987-93), and co-authored Voices from Wounded Knee, a print documentary based on her two months of reporting from within the Pine Ridge Reservation during the 1973 Indian-government armed stand-off. Brown has an MSJ in Journalism from Northwestern University.

> VUE 17 Article: Parents Building Communities in Schools

 
Kavitha Mediratta

Kavitha Mediratta is a principal associate in the Community Involvement Program at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Kavitha helps youth organizing groups develop school-improvement campaigns; supports the work of the Urban Youth Collaborative, a coalition of youth organizations aimed at influencing high school reform in New York City; and oversees research on community organizing for school reform at the Community Involvement Program (CIP). She initiated CIP in 1995 and was instrumental in developing CIP's strategy of building community-driven education policy reform coalitions and expanding New York community organizations' capacity to lead school-improvement organizing campaigns. > More

> VUE 17 Article: Stepping Up, Stepping Back: Developing Youth Leadership

 
Jesse Register

Jesse Register serves as the first Annenberg Senior Advisor for District Leadership. He shares his experiences with partnerships between reform support organizations and school districts and helps the Institute provide advice and consultation to a new generation of school leaders. His work includes research, writing, tool review, on-site work with district leaders in Institute partner sites, advice on design and operation of a proposed district reinvention network currently under consideration by the Gates Foundation, and strategic advice to the Institute's Leadership Team. Previously, as the first superintendent of the combined city-county district of Chattanooga /Hamilton County, Tennessee, he led the district successfully through a challenging merger of the urban and suburban districts, restructured nine low-performing schools, and launched a major redesign of all the district's high schools.

> VUE 17 Article: Developing Effective Multiple Partnerships

 
    Robert Rothman

Robert Rothman is responsible for writing Institute publications and editing the Institute's quarterly journal Voices in Urban Education, a "roundtable-in-print" designed to air diverse viewpoints and share new knowledge on vital issues in urban education. He has written for numerous education publications and organizations and was a reporter and editor for Education Week. He was also a senior project associate for Achieve, a study director for the National Research Council, and the director of special projects for the National Center on Education and the Economy. Bob holds a BA in political science from Yale University. He is the author of Measuring Up: Standards, Assessment and School Reform and numerous book chapters and articles on testing and education reform.

> VUE 16 Article: Leveling the Playing Field: The Promise of Extended Learning Opportunities and Supports for Youth

 

Warren Simmons

Warren Simmons directs the work of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Before joining the Institute in 1998, he was executive director of the Philadelphia Education Fund, where he supported districtwide efforts to enact standards-based reform. He received a B.A. in psychology from Macalester College and a PhD in psychology from Cornell University. He serves on the boards of several national and local education organizations including the Public Education Network, the National Center on Education and the Economy, and the Rhode Island Children's Crusade. > More

> VUE 17 Article: Building a Foundation for Smart Education Systems

 

Bill Strickland

Bill Strickland is president and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center. His duties include: developing and implementing major fund-raising plans of action; working with Boards of Directors and an Industry Advisory Board; encouraging participation of corporate executive officials from major multi-national Pittsburgh corporations. Strickland has completed the development of a new 40,000 square-foot production greenhouse, created for agricultural training; a 70,000 square-foot medical technology complex; and a 62,000 square-foot facility as a mortgage free asset for both MCG and BTC. The facilities include a 350-seat music/lecture hall, library, arts studios and labs, dining and meeting rooms, state-of-the-art award winning audio and video recording studios. Together they serve as a demonstration site for Hewlett Packard and Steelcase equipment. > More

> VUE 17 Article: Creating a “Common Geography”: A Long-Term Partnership in Pittsburgh

 

Joanne Thompson

Joanne Thompson is a research associate in district redesign at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Joanne researches general resources, compiles and analyzes data, compiles annotated bibliographies, writes reports and publications, and helps plan and prepare various meetings and site work. Before coming to the Institute, she was a teaching assistant in the classics department at Brown University. Joanne received a BA in classics and Spanish from the University of Missouri and has completed the coursework for a master's degree in classics at Brown.

> VUE 17 Article: Developing Effective Multiple Partnerships

 

Mark R. Warren

Mark R. Warren is an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He studies efforts to strengthen institutions that anchor inner-city communities—churches, schools, and other community-based organizations—and to build broad-based alliances among these institutions and across race and social class. Warren is interested in the development of community leaders through involvement in multiracial political action as well as the outcomes of such efforts in fostering community development, social justice, and school transformation; and is committed to using the results of scholarly research to advance democratic practice. > More

> VUE 17 Article: Partners for Change: Public Schools and Community-Based Organizations