Buffalo Commons Charter School is an academically rigorous, creative, and collaborative K-8 learning community that uses research-based teaching practices and innovative programming to eliminate the opportunity gap and to prepare a diverse student body for successful lives that strengthen their communities. As the founding board chair I was instrumental in designing the school, securing a charter from the State University of New York, and recruiting and leading the founding board of trustees.

In partnerships with Dallas Independent School District and Richardson Independent School District, I designed and facilitated 20+ hours of teacher training and professional development and provided technical assistance to the districts to prepare for curriculum rollout and conduct ongoing course evaluation and revision.

In partnership with the Louisiana Department of Education, my team worked with 25 teachers and principals from across the state to develop a new, innovative career exploration course serving 30,000+ students. I provided technical assistance to the state to train teachers, prepare for curriculum rollout, and conduct ongoing course evaluation and revision.

I had a classroom with three walls when I first started teaching. A bookshelf separated my classroom from the neighboring one. My students ranged from 14- to 18-years-old—and I was 21. Things were interesting, to say the least.

Twenty years ago, I was a freshman in high school. I spent the next four years in my assigned seat among the rows of desks, trying to listen to the teacher at the front of the room, completing homework assignments from textbooks, and preparing for tests by making countless flashcards. I was a well-behaved student and earned As and Bs, so most of the adults in the building didn’t pay much attention to me.

To support the work of The Education Trust—New York, I conducted teacher interviews to learn about their educator preparation experiences in New York State. My research informed the writing of The First Frontier of Equity: Improving Data Transparency, Availability & Usefulness in Teacher Preparation to Support Future Teachers… and Their Students.

I designed, built, and facilitated in-person and virtual professional development. I cultivated dynamic, cohesive learning environments to help 1,000+ practicing educators build on their classroom expertise to understand the larger context and have a greater impact. Topics included: Publishing Your Message Through Opinion Writing and Social Media; Partnering with Business, Industry, and Community; and Crafting and Influencing Policy.

As the founding program manager for the New York Educator Voice Fellowship, I empowered over 100 teachers and principals to advocate for better policy. My leadership resulted in 1,000+ campaign activities including advising the New York State Education Department, launching Bring Your Legislator to School Day, and earned media in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Since the rollout of the Common Core across the state, opponents have criticized the state Education Department for, at least in their view, failing to provide teachers and parents with an appropriate number of released questions from the aligned grade 3-8 assessments, as well as the background to both understand the tests themselves and to help their children succeed.

New York State lawmakers recently approved a budget that gave the State Education Department until the end of June to redesign the teacher evaluation system. The bill requires the department to consult with “experts and practitioners in the field of education.” I am willing to bet there are hundreds of qualified educators across the state who would jump at the opportunity to help with this process, and frankly, in other professions, it’s practitioners themselves who decide how to hold their peers accountable.

I supported TNTP's city- and state-wide teaching fellows programs by screening, interviewing, and evaluating over 1,500 teacher candidates.

At Teach Plus in Washington, DC, I supported the development of teaching policy fellows, focused on impactful improvements to education policy, and teacher leader teams, focused on school improvement and turnaround. I also helped create the organization's national "core collaborative" program by leading an 8-person team of educators to facilitate professional learning for 120+ local teachers.

DCPS has figured out how to identify effective teachers through its IMPACT evaluation system, but it needs to continue to shift its focus to figuring out how to keep them in the classroom. One way to do that is to provide more information about where its best teachers are and how long they stay there.