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| Education Experts |
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The Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal Experts on Education bring together some of the Philadelphia region's most innovative education thought leaders. These individuals blend practice with research and are living their respective innovative solutions within education. The Journal's Education Experts have assembled to provide a forum for Greater Philadelphia to engage with some of the region's education leaders who have put theory into practice and are achieving results. Objectives are to:
We encourage our readers to submit questions. Please use our ask-an-expert form to submit one, or send an email to Tine Hansen-Turton, PSIJ publisher, directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Current Question: How do we take High Quality Education to Scale?In the Philadelphia region we have excellent models of education within the public, public-charter, religious (i.e. archdiocese), and private schools. We also have some very poor models of education within all the systems. We already know what works within education, but yet we still have thousands of students living with a poor education. How do we take High Quality Education to Scale? Education Experts
Autumn AtkinsAutumn J. Adkins is a native of Richmond, Virginia, where she graduated from the Collegiate School. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and Communications Studies, with a minor in history, in 1994 from the University of Virginia, later continuing her study of history with courses at the graduate level at the University of Richmond. In 2000, Ms. Adkins completed a Master of Arts in Education Administration with a focus on Private School Leadership at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. She also holds a Certificate in Fundraising from New York University. Ms. Adkins comes to Girard College from Friends Seminary, in Manhattan, where she was assistant principal for six years, during which time she served a term as president of the national Assistant Heads Association. Prior to Friends Seminary, she was Dean of the Upper School at Sidwell Friends, in Washington, DC. She began her career at the Mercersburg Academy, in Mercersburg, PA, as the Director of Special Programs, later moving on to the Breck School, in Minneapolis, where she served as Upper School Counselor and Community Service Coordinator. Among her many roles at each of these schools, Ms. Adkins has run key administrative programs, chaired numerous committees and served as a U.S. history teacher and student advisor. Ms. Adkins was selected as the National Association of Independent Schools Edward E. Ford Fellow for Emerging Leaders in 2003. While a graduate student at Columbia, she was awarded a Klingenstein Center Fellowship and served as the Mentoring Scholar of the Educational Administration Program. She has also made community service a focus of both her work and personal life, having won the Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education Commendation Award for Intergenerational Community Service Program, and volunteered with the Junior League in her free time.
David BromleyDavid Bromley was an advisor and LTI coordinator at before joining the Big Picture team in the summer of 2005 to coach . Presently, David is working tirelessly in Pennsylvania to set up Big Picture Philadelphia, a Big Picture Learning affiliate. Before coming to Big Picture, David co-founded the Association of National Scholastic Excellence and Reform (ANSER) in Santa Monica, CA, a not-for-profit foundation designed to foster a greater awareness of and commitment to public schools. He holds a masters degree in education from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles as well as a master degree in education administration from the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools (BAYCES).
David CastroDavid Castro is the President of I-LEAD and its Chief Executive Officer. In 1991, Mr. Castro joined the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, where he assisted District Attorney Abraham in creating the Public Nuisance Task Force, and served as its first Chief. The Task Force was the first inter-agency enforcement program of its kind targeting crack houses and nuisance liquor establishments. During this time, he also served as President of the 5000-member Young Lawyers Division of the Philadelphia Bar Association, where he coordinated the implementation of more than fifty (50) volunteer programs serving the public and the Bar. During his career in public service, David has served as the founding Executive Director of Pennsylvania Weed and Seed, the Executive Director of the Center for the Community Interest, and has been awarded Kellogg, Eisenhower, and Ashoka Fellowships in recognition of his innovative leadership and public service. Mr. Castro is a graduate of Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Tracy-Elizabeth ClayTracy-Elizabeth Clay assumed the role of general counsel at Teach For America in October 2006. In this role, Clay is responsible for meeting the legal and regulatory needs of Teach For America, including risk management and regulatory compliance. She previously served as Teach For America's first director of state and local government relations and as the founding executive director of Teach For America's Philadelphia site. Prior to her work at Teach For America, Clay was an associate with Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C., where she practiced in the Antitrust, Health and Privacy practice groups for four years. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, was an officer of the Law Review, and clerked for the Hon. Anne Thompson in New Jersey. She completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University with a degree in public policy, concentration in urban and regional development.
Phil GoldsmithPhil Goldsmith has held senior positions in a broad spectrum of fields including law, journalism, government and banking. Most recently he served as the Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia and served as executive director of Fairmount Park and chief executive officer of the School District of Philadelphia. In the early 1980s, he was Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning. He was recently named one of Philadelphia's top "connectors" in a survey of 4,800 Philadelphians conducted by Leadership Inc. Earlier in his career, Phil was an award-winning journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer as a reporter, and as an editorial writer he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is married, has two adult children and four grandchildren.
Marc MannellaMarc Mannella founded KIPP Philadelphia Charter School (KPCS) in 2003, and served as its School Leader for five years. Prior to founding KPCS, Mannella taught middle school science in Baltimore as a Teach For America corps member, and then taught high school biology and environmental science at a charter high school in Philadelphia. Seeing very bright children in his high school classes struggle to do basic mathematics and read science textbooks, he decided to take on education reform on a larger scale, which led him to KIPP. Because of KPCS’ initial success, Mannella has taken on a new challenge as CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Schools. In this role he has laid forth a plan for KIPP to grow from one high performing charter school to a cluster of ten high performing charter schools, by 2019. At full enrollment this cluster of schools will serve grades K-12, and increase the number of minority students in North and West Philadelphia who are prepared to matriculate to college by 36%. Mannella holds a BA in Psychology and Biology from the University of Rochester, and an M.Ed. in Education Leadership from National Louis University.
Evie McNiffEvie McNiff is the founder and board president of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia. With a simple mission of providing four-year, K-8th grade scholarships to low-income families in Philadelphia and a small but passionate staff, CSFP currently serves 3,000 children enrolled at approximately 200 private, and parochial schools.CSFP has awarded 7,000, K through 8th grade, low-income scholarships over the last 10 years. Evie serves on the board of CHILD (Churchill Institute on Leadership and Development) Evie holds a B.A. from Yale University. She is married, has three children and lives outside of Philadelphia.
Marilyn Perez
Sharon M. RavitchSharon M. Ravitch, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Executive Leadership Development at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education where she is Co-Director of the Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education. Ravitch teaches master's and doctoral-level courses in qualitative research, evidence-based practice, ethnography, research development and instrument design, fieldwork and mentoring, and race and cultural issues in urban education at the Graduate School of Education and at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at The Wharton School of Business. Ravitch earned two master's degrees from Harvard University, one in Human Development and Psychology and the other in Education. She earned her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in an interdisciplinary program that combined anthropology, sociology, and education. Ravitch has published two books: School Counseling Principles: Diversity and Multiculturalism (American School Counselor Association Press, 2006) and, with Michael Nakkula, Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships with Youth (Jossey-Bass, 1998). Ravitch is engaged in the teaching of and collaborative research with educational and business leaders across the United States as well as with systemic family therapists at the Central Integral de la Familia and the Universidad Cristiana Latino Americana in Quito, Ecuador; (2) International development work including social justice research that works from a participatory action research approach: Ravitch engages in applied development research in Ecuador and Nicaragua; (3) Ethnography within and across fields: Ravitch is engaged in collaborative research on issues of methodology, representation, and media influence on the practices, conceptions, articulations, and uses of ethnography within and across disciplines; and (4) Teacher Education: Ravitch is engaged in research that focuses on teacher education and professional development, specifically the ways in which issues of diversity, inequity, and the sociopolitical context of schooling shape urban teachers' perspectives on students, their own worldviews, and their pedagogy as well as the teaching and learning that take place in and around teacher education courses. Ravitch publishes, speaks and consults internationally in the areas of evidence-based practice, qualitative research, ethnography, practitioner and action research, applied research in developing countries, and issues of gender, race, culture and equity in organizations. She is Research Co-Director at the Center for the Study of Boys' and Girls' Lives.
Hadass ShefferHadass Sheffer is the founding Executive Director of Graduate! Philadelphia, an initiative to increase the number of adult college graduates. In this capacity, she has built a broad-based regional coalition to advance the interests of adult college students and created the nation’s first multi-partner college success program for adults. Graduate! Philadelphia’s partnership includes 18 colleges, the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board and the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Prior, Hadass was Director of Higher Education Fellowships and Program Development at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Her portfolio included several national postsecondary ed fellowships, campus-community partnerships, and programs aimed to help advanced degree holders transition into non-academic careers. Before that, Hadass was manager of e-Content at an electronic publishing house for several years. She has taught adult students at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania’s College of General Studies, and “traditional aged” students at Swarthmore College. Hadass holds an MBA from Temple University, and an ABD in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her B.A. in Linguistics is from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Deborah SternDeborah Stern taught high school and college-level English, instructed and supervised preservice teachers, and supported veteran teachers in a variety of academic and professional programs in Chicago. Deborah’s award-winning high school English program was featured in several books on teaching for social justice, as well as in her own Teaching English So It Matters (Corwin Press, 1995). She came to Philadelphia in 1997 on a Spencer Urban Educators Fellowship, and served as a co-founder and Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Mastery Charter School from . In 2006, she began working as an independent consultant to support new teachers and administrators. She is currently a Master Teacher at Freire Charter School in Philadelphia. She received a BA from Swarthmore College, an MAT from the University of Chicago, and a PhD. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Nicholas TorresNicholas D. Torres currently serves as President of Education-Plus, Inc. and is a Senior Fellow with Public Private Ventures. Formerly, Nicholas D. Torres served as President of Congreso, a nationally recognized, community-based, non-profit organization. He is also Chair of Pan American Academy Charter School and Co-Founder of the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal. He serves as a Human Relations Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia and is Co-Chair of the National Council of La Raza's Northeastern Affiliates. In January of 2008, he was one of 10 Americans to receive the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, which honors emerging leaders from around the world. Mr. Torres has also been recognized by Leadership Philadelphia as one of the 101 Philadelphia Connectors. Prior to his current responsibilities, he taught in the South Bronx as part of Teach for America and worked as a family and child therapist in Philadelphia. Mr. Torres graduated from Carleton College and holds a Master’s degree in Counseling Education from the University of Texas at Austin.
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