Ed.

the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

summer 2011

How Do You
Close a
School?
also inside | school lunch | high school quiz shows | soldiers and schools
 the big picture
the appian way

March 8, 2011
For the nearly 800 students at TechBoston Academy, it was the opportunity
of a lifetime: President Barack Obama chose to visit their school as part
of his recent trip to the Bay State. Headmaster Mary Skipper, Ed.M.’06,
gave Obama a three-hour tour, with several Ed School student interns in
tow. While visiting classrooms, the president shook
hands and asked students what they hoped to study
in college. Later, during a speech in the auditorium,
Obama touted the school’s turnaround academic Watch a video
success and highly praised Skipper, whom he said interview with
Mary Skipper.
was doing “unbelievable work.”

B Ed. • summer 2011

 michael rodman

Harvard Graduate School of Education 1

 Closing Time
The reality is, school districts close
schools for many reasons: tight
budgets, low performance, under-
enrollment. Once the decision is
made, the question becomes: How
do you do it right?

20
istockphoto.com
26

32
features

Quiz Kids Lunch Line

Lightning rounds. Head-to-head. Quizmasters. A look at the 65-year-old National School
Buzzers. The high school quiz show is still as Lunch Program and the new legislation that
popular and fun as ever. says goodbye to french fries and hello to farro.
 a click away
stories and links found only online

www.gse.harvard.edu

16 6 Proving that
education can
be fun, Gary
Knell, presi-
Look for this logo
throughout the
dent and CEO magazine highlight-

ap Photo/ Bizvayehu Tosfaye

of the non- ing related videos,
profit Sesame EdCasts, web
stories, and more.
Workshop,
braved a New
England snowstorm and
came to Cambridge this past February. While

8
here, he spoke with the Harvard EdCast about
taboo topics on Sesame Street, taking criticism from
Elmo, and why he most identifies with Grover.

Just weeks after Ed. maga-

zine ran a profile about his
4 Letters year-long efforts to start
a new American interna-
6 The Appian Way
departments

tional university in Cairo,

38 Alumni News and Notes Norman Smith, Ed.D.’84,

38
courtesy of norman smith
fled Egypt during the civil-
48 Recess
ian protests that toppled
49 Investing the Mubarek government
this past winter. In an
online follow-up interview, Smith talks about his
decision to leave.
events www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/events
twitter www.twitter.com/hgse
facebook www.facebook.com/harvardeducation

48
youtube www.youtube.com/harvardeducation
flickr www.flickr.com/photos/harvardeducation
scribd www.scribd.com/harvardeducation

senior writer/editor
Lory Hough
lory_hough@harvard.edu
production manager/editor
Marin Jorgensen
marin_jorgensen@harvard.edu
designer
Paula Telch Cooney
paula_telch@harvard.edu
Director of Communications
Michael Rodman
dagmar nelson
What’s this?
Called a QR code, this two dimensional
barcode used in Ed. is readable by
contributing writers copyeditor
mobile phones with cameras or scanners
Mateo Corby Abigail Mieko Vargus
and takes readers directly online.
Erica Mosca, Ed.M.’11
Laura Pappano © 2011 by the President and
Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08 Fellows of Harvard College.
Umesh Sharma, Ed.M.’05 Ed. magazine is published
Mary Tamer three times a year. Third-class
postage paid at Randolph, Mass.
photographers and additional offices.
Jill Anderson
Briget Ganske POSTMASTER:
Elena Gormley Send address changes to: To read Ed. online, go to
Tanit Sakakini Harvard Graduate School of Education www.gse.harvard.edu/ed.
Martha Stewart Office of Communications

michael_rodman@harvard.edu 44R Brattle Street

illustrators Cambridge, MA 02138
Communications intern Lynn Rowe Reed
Mateo Corby Daniel Vasconcellos
 The new format of Ed. is terrific.
The weight and fiber content
of the paper is perfect, makes
the pages easy to turn and,
frankly, makes for a very classy
publication. The pictures have
amazing clarity and clearly reflect
the advancement of publications
technology. Of course, the articles
continue to be timely, informative,
and expertly illustrated, e.g.
“Reading 101.” I applaud the new
look of Ed. Keep up the good work!
— Carolyn Miller, Ed.M.’90

Format-Friendly
I want to compliment you on the recent
changes in layout and design of Ed.
magazine. I was pleasantly surprised
when I picked up the winter 2011 copy!
I found it much more reader-friendly
and definitely spent more time reading
and thinking about the articles.
— Kerry Aderman, Ed.M.’09
You Need /r/ /ee/ /d/ to Read
The mention of schools in Finland
(“You Need /r/ /ee/ /d/ to Read,”
winter 2011) not focusing on teach-
ing children to read until age seven
reminded me of the Waldorf school
philosophy. Why do we in the United
States insist on adding these pres-
sures when simply encouraging other
activities would allow children to
flourish with a lot less aggravation and
frustration? I also wonder if there are
fewer “learning disabilities” identified
in early grades where children are
given time to develop neurologically
before being introduced to reading
curriculum.
— Karen Ruel

Missing Enumeration?
As the serial control coordinator
here at Indiana University Libraries,
Bloomington, I scoured the winter
2011 issue of Ed. magazine for the
enumeration but could not find it any-
where. I believe the numbering should
be V. 54, No. 2. Please let me know if
I am correct and if the numbering will
return to future issues.
— Heidi Busch

Editor’s note: We’re sorry you had

to spend so much time looking for
something that wasn’t there. When we
redesigned the magazine, starting with
the winter 2011 issue, we decided to let
go of the numbering.

4 Ed. • summer 2011

pushback

I was very happy to see recognition given the title did a poor job of presenting or

courtesy of atif rafique

to the significance of continued direct
and explicit reading instruction provided
by a fantastic young reading specialist.
This is a subject close to my own heart
and deserves much greater attention in
the academic community. However, I
am shocked to see such a poorly written
article on a Harvard website.
The amount of information
crammed into this short article com-
pletely obscured its purpose. Was
it written to laud the work of this
teacher? To introduce the subject of
phonemes? To inform the audience
about this recognized system to teach
reading? To introduce new research
into how the brain learns to read? Even
introducing the subject of phonemes!
However, the biggest shock was
the quality of the writing itself. If this
writer were paid based on the number
of commas or passive verbs used, the
fragmented sentencing, or the ridicu-
lous number of sentences begun with
conjunctions, her paycheck just might
threaten Harvard’s endowment!
I expect better than this from
Harvard.
— Tami Littleton
I do wonder about “how readers turn
squiggles into sounds and then ...
words” because I am in the kindergar-
ten stages of learning to read Arabic! It
still mostly seems like squiggles to me.
— Marian Conning
Emulated
I do envy this businessman (alumni
profile, Atif Rafique, Ed.M.’03, fall
2010) for his academic record and his
other achievements in life.
— Tiroid
Do not envy him, emulate him. Atif
is a really nice guy who deserves to
be successful. We were at Harvard
together, and I always knew he would
do well. One of those good guys that
you hope would eventually be in a
position to do some good in the world.
Congratulations.
— Sara Wilford

Friends? We Weren’t Monkeying Around

By now, most of you know that the Ed While this isn’t
School has a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/harvardeducation. a letter, we
(And if you didn’t know, go “like” us now!) What you may not be aware thought it was
of is that Ed. magazine has been using the page more and more to worth mention-
connect with readers, and not just to repost stories that we’ve already ing that the
written. We’re using Facebook to get ideas. For example, we recently video that we
starting asking readers to tell us what one question they would ask an produced to go
Ed School faculty member if given the opportunity. We pick one of the along with the
posted questions, have a member of the faculty write an answer, and Recess story
then we publish the exchange in an issue of the magazine. We’ve also (winter 2011)
been posting questions to readers regarding stories we’re thinking about current Ed.D. student Anjali
of including or ones in progress. With the winter 2011 issue, readers Adukia, Ed.M.’03, and her monkey
actually chose the cover story, a piece that explores what it takes to dissertation adventure was picked up
get an emerging reader reading. For the fall 2011 issue, we have asked not once, but twice, by the Chronicle of
readers working in education what they think of teachers and students Higher Education. It ultimately ended
using Wikipedia in the classroom or for research. The comments proved up with more than 5,000 views on
useful and provided the writer with several people to interview for the YouTube. Not bad
story. Readers also chose this issue’s cover photo! So please “like” the for a piece that
school’s Facebook page if you haven’t already, then check in on us from included bananas
time to time — you may just end up in a future issue of the magazine! and a kid in a too- Watch the
small Halloween monkey video
for yourself!
www.facebook.com/harvardeducation costume.

Harvard Graduate School of Education 5

briget ganske

elena gormley

briget ganske
the appian way

lecturehall Assistant Professor Katherine Masyn

S
he fell in love with math at an early age. She eventually discovered statistics while in college and
was even more enamored. But it was actually a veterinary school that introduced Katherine Masyn
to something that would take her through three Ph.D. programs to the real passion of her life: latent
variable models. At the time, she was a doctoral student in the school of engineering at Cornell University study-
ing something she wasn’t really interested in — operations research. At the suggestion of a friend who knew she missed
working with data, she took an elective methods course at the university’s vet school on epidemiology, the study of health
and illness patterns. “We talked about study design and implications for answering research questions,” Masyn says. “I
loved it.” The professor asked if she had ever heard of biostatistics — an area of statistics focused on biology and public
health. She hadn’t, but her interest was piqued. This took her to the University of California–Berkeley, where, in another
epidemiology course, she learned about latent variable models. “I thought, ‘This is fantastic!’ Something clicked,” she
says. “This is how I think about the world. This is awesome.” Now in her second year teaching at the Ed School after four

years teaching at the University of California–Davis, Masyn, with her dog
Byron by her side, spoke to Ed. in February about “stattoos,” magic chairs,
and why even her mom has a hard time describing what she does.
Your mom has spent the last
10 years practicing a phrase
to explain what you do.
What’s her phrase?
These days she leads with,
“My daughter is a professor
at Harvard.” Then asked what
I do, she says “social research quantita-
tive methodologist.” I asked her what
she says if someone wants to know
what that actually means and she said
no one ever goes there.
How does the hand-painted chair in
your office tie into this?
My students at Davis gave it to me
when I left for Harvard. It made me
cry. When students came to meet
with me in my office, they would sit
in a chair across from my desk. They
realized that when they sat in this chair,
they understood everything. But when
they got up and left, it all went away.
It was like we had never met. So they
started calling it Masyn’s Magic Chair.
Initially you wanted to be a high school
math teacher, but that changed after
you took a statistics course.
Statistics is all about modeling uncer-
tainty in the world. With math, there’s
a right or wrong answer and a Truth
“
with a capital “T.” With statistics, even
if you believe there is a single truth, you
can’t necessarily derive it theoretically.
You need to collect data and make
inferences based on it. I loved it and I
decided I wanted to do more of that.
How did you first learn about latent
variable models?
I had to do a reading with latent vari-
able analysis, which looked at the effect
of quality of life issues and aging popu-
lations, trying to get at how to measure
and quantify “quality of life.”
And the latent variable part?
The idea is that you can’t measure
it directly. There isn’t a quality-of-
life-o’meter. Quality of life is a latent
variable; it’s not directly observed.
What you can observe is what you think
are manifestations of this underlying
variable. You can ask people about their
ease or difficulty doing certain activi-
ties of daily living. You can get reports
from family members. No one measure
is going to give us a perfect read, but
ask this range of questions and do this
range of observations and maybe, if
you combine all of this information,
you’ll get a better idea of this underly-
ing thing that we can’t directly observe.
This is how
I think about
the world. This
is awesome.”
Speaking of what can be observed, tell
me about your “stattoos.”
Since math and stats are my pas-
sion, and since my deep connection
to my work derives from the fact that
I instinctively and reflexively see my
world as one giant statistical model,
it’s no surprise that my creative forms
of expression often take some sort
of math/stat form. I got each of my
tattoos and piercings to commemorate
important events and transitions, to
reconnect with myself after a difficult
time, or to remind myself of challenges
and achievements. For example, I got
my first stattoo when I graduated from
college with my B.S. in mathematics.
My other stattoo is in memory of my
dad. He died eight years ago on March
14, which is “Pi Day,” hence the Pi
tattoo on my neck. I
already have a stattoo
planned for if/when I
get tenure. Link to a video
of Masyn and
stat raps.
— Lory Hough

Harvard Graduate School of Education 7

 the appian way

atob Why Erica Mosca Cares

At 16, the most important event in my
life occurred: My family moved out
of a lower-income southern California
neighborhood to a middle-class commu-
nity. I went from earning a GPA ranking
me sixth out of more than 300 students
to earning the first C on a report card in
my life. I went from being a straight-A
Spanish student to retaking Spanish
II. The D on my first AP English
paper, covered in my new
teacher’s red ink, showcased my
lack of formal grammar instruc-
tion. At 16, I did not have the
knowledge to attribute my
new problems to the achieve-
ment gap — that I was behind
because my family moved. My
new high school was my seventh
school in all, and even though
I had done everything right at

each of them, I was still behind.
Yet I was lucky. My parents
continued to remind me that hard
work and a college education would
change everything. And it did. As the
first person in my family to graduate from college, I have had
opportunities and experiences I could never dream of as a
child. Not all young people are as lucky. Today only one in 10
low-income students will reach the American dream through
an excellent education.
This excruciating fact is what brought me to the Ed
School to study education policy and management.
But it’s not just the statistics that brought me here; it’s the
faces of my former fifth-graders. After graduating summa
cum laude from Boston University in 2008, I joined Teach For
America in Nevada’s Las Vegas Valley with the goal of inspir-
ing students with similar backgrounds to mine to use educa-
tion as the way out of the circumstances they had been born
into. Faced with the highest high school dropout, foreclosure,
and unemployment rates in this country, only one out of 10
students in the state of Nevada will earn bachelor’s degrees.
But as hard as I taught, and as focused and hardworking
as my students were, the fact remains: The state they live in
ensures less than half of them will even graduate from high
school. Those fifth-graders are now seventh-graders, and
none of them are enrolled in prealgebra, which means none
of them will take calculus in high school. Their feeder high
school has failed to make adequate yearly progress in the last
five years. As their teacher, I had no power to remove these
Daniel Vasconcellos
barriers for my students. Today I feel like a criminal: I told a
class of 10-year-olds for a whole year that hard work would
lead to success and that college would transform their lives
and the lives of their families. But I never told them what to
do if teachers held low expectations for them or what to do
when stuck in a failing school.
During this past winter break, my parents and I took a
dozen of my former students ice skating, the first time skating
for many of these children. When asking them their hopes
and dreams, they all shared that they want to go to college
and be successful. And though these are the same hopes and
dreams as their higher-income peers — the same dreams
I once had — the simple fact they live in their part of Las
Vegas slowly closes opportunities day by day.
I used to wonder what would have happened to me if I
had been doomed to stay in my failing high school. Now the
question that gets me up in the morning goes beyond me:
What will happen to my 56 former students who face such
daunting odds? I will return to Nevada for the same reason
I came to Harvard: to ensure that obtaining an excellent
education does not rest on luck.
— Erica Mosca, Ed.M.’11, will graduate from the Education Policy
and Management Program in May.

8 Ed. • summer 2011

The College Search Made Easier
The campus visit is a significant and memorable occasion “Counselors have told me that they often refer their
for students and parents involved in the college search, but students to these articles. In addition, some counselors plan
organizing the adventure can sometimes be a nightmare. trips to visit campuses with their students or as part of their
When Kevin Preis, Ed.M.’07, witnessed family members own professional development,” he says. “They’ll use Go
struggling with the challenges of finding information about See Campus to plot their routes, get campus maps, and find
campus tours, keeping contact information for
track of admissions admissions officers.”
details, and getting New initiatives include
reliable advice on their a counselor’s newslet-
college searches, he ter that began last fall
immediately went online to provide updates
to look for an itinerary on new site features
planning tool for college and relevant profes-
visits. To his surprise, sional development
he came up empty. He opportunities.
began thinking about his Preis, a graduate
own college admissions of the Technology,
process — both the good Innovation, and
moments and the difficult Education (TIE)
ones — and decided Program, senses that
to use his computer digital media is quickly
programming knowledge becoming a larger part
to build a website that of the college search.
would make the college “Students are still
search a more engaging, learning about schools
enjoyable experience. through college web-
The result was Go sites, but they are also
See Campus, a free exploring them through
website that helps students and parents plan campus visits third-party sites and social media,” he says. “As a result, some
online and make the most of the college search. Among of the decisionmaking about whether to apply to a specific
other resources, the site includes what Preis believes is a college happens away from the school’s official channels. I
first-of-its-kind web tool that connects users to campus tours, imagine we’ll soon see colleges investing in new technology
information sessions, and other admissions activities. and platforms to reach potential applicants.”
“Now students and parents can go to a single website,” To enhance the site’s utility, Preis plans to add a number
he says, “choose the schools they want to visit, learn about of new features. For example, the College Trip Planner’s
admissions activities on campus, build an itinerary for their Map Creator currently allows users to plot and save a driving
trip, and get resources like campus maps, parking directions, route from one school to the next; a future update will give
nearby dining options, and events calendars.” By compiling the option to find nearby colleges along the route.
all this information in one place, Go See Campus saves users Several years post-graduation, Preis still maintains rela-
the headache of scouring each individual college website for tionships with his Harvard classmates and professors, many
admissions details. of whom have provided helpful advice and feedback on his
In addition to students and parents, Preis says that high business ventures.
school counselors have used the website as a complement to “More generally,” he says, “the Ed School’s TIE Program
their work advising students throughout the college search allowed me to explore emerging technologies and to think
process. Since Preis made it one of his goals to provide as about how they could apply to learning and communication.
many helpful resources as possible for counselors, Go See Go See Campus is a product of that exploration.”
Campus has a growing library of advice articles on topics
like deciding how many colleges to visit, what questions to — Mateo Corby is a senior at Harvard College.
ask during campus tours, and how to prepare for admis-
sions interviews. ­— Connect to GoPart
See of Campus at www.goseecampus.com.
Jewell-Sherman’s collection

Harvard Graduate School of Education 9

 the appian way
Not the War Umesh Sharma Expected
This is the story of a Harvard
graduate who has taken the road
less traveled. I came to the United
States six years ago from Rajasthan,
India, to attend Harvard. After
obtaining my master’s in the
International Education Policy
Program, I decided not to return to India. I became a teach-
er in Washington, D.C. Then, in February 2009, the U.S.
Army started a new program, MAVNI: Military Accession
Vital to National Interest. I was able to join the Army despite
being a legal immigrant and not having U.S. citizenship or
permanent residency.
My father had served for 16 years in the Indian infantry
before he started a K–12 school for his children and other
kids. I decided to follow in his footsteps. In the summer of
2009, I left the comfort of my job as a teacher and joined the
U.S. Army. Considering my qualifications, I could perhaps
have gotten any job in the military, but I have always had a
drive to push myself physically. I have competed in mara-
thons, 10K races, and triathlons, so the demands of being
a grunt, and family tradition, compelled me to join the
infantry. It just seemed like a perfect fit. However, despite
my desire to be just an infantryman, upon arrival to my
unit in Hawaii, my superiors learned about my educational
background and assigned me to a special, unconventional
position to assist the commander with additional burdens of
an “advise, train, and assist” mission.
Our unit deployed to Iraq on the fourth of July 2010. A
few months after our arrival in the Kirkuk province, com-
bat operations (Operation Iraqi Freedom) officially ended.
Operation New Dawn began on September 1 with the
“advise, train, and assist” mission. Essentially, we stopped
actively targeting and pursuing the enemy and started train-
ing Iraqi Security Forces. We also assisted local government
officials by helping them rebuild infrastructure that had
greatly suffered over the past seven years.
This was not the mission I had expected when I first
joined the Army.
Reality
When we first arrived in July to our small base, which we
shared with an Iraqi Army battalion, it was more than 130
degrees Fahrenheit. The morning that I write this — January
4, 2011, the halfway point in our one-year tour — it’s 32
degrees. We still wear the same uniform with the obligatory
40-pound body armor. It used to be a burden in the unbear-
able heat, but now it feels more comfortable.
10 Ed. • summer 2011
Many of us expected intense fighting like we had seen
in the movies or heard from fellow soldiers with previous
deployments under their belts. However, insurgent attacks
against U.S. forces have become infrequent. So far, our
Warrior brigade has lost five soldiers (KIA: killed in action)
in the past six months, with many others wounded in action.
Thankfully no one in my company, Reaper, has sustained
serious injuries despite several close calls.
Hearts and Minds
The number of attacks had come down after U.S. forces
introduced a new program in 2007 to win the hearts
and minds of the people. The Commander’s Emergency
Response Program allowed company commanders to iden-
tify areas in need of infrastructure improvement and work
through the local government to hire local contractors.
Company Reaper is responsible for the predominantly
agricultural region of Kirkuk. As is the case in many agrar-
ian cultures around the world, formal education is greatly
underappreciated. Many of the local schools are little more
than multiroom mud huts while the larger schools from the
Saddam-era are in total disrepair. Restoration and rebuild-
ing schools has been our unit’s specific focus. This past
October, the newly reconstructed Fedika Girls Elementary
School reopened for the first time since a suicide bomber
destroyed it during the tumultuous elections of 2005.
Besides overseeing the construction, we also provided
school supplies — school bags, pencil boxes, and notebooks —
for the Iraqi soldiers to distribute to the children. The little
girls were thrilled with all the colorful bags they were getting
but were very obedient in class. Afterwards they followed us
around the hallway demanding that I, the designated Reaper
photographer, take their pictures, which I did. Even the Iraqi
grownups seemed to be caught up in the childish enthusiasm.
It showed a more familial aspect of the Iraqi society: children
and adults in a mellowed setting.
Our most recent reopening was in December, the Al
Tafaul Elementary School, which was also destroyed in 2005
by suicide bombers attempting to disrupt and discredit the
election. At the opening ceremony, the city mayor thanked us
for “helping remove the face of war from our city.” Although
I had previously worked with school children in the United
States and India, the ability to facilitate the improvement of
education in Iraq as a way to win the hearts and minds and
promote freedom through education, as the Nobel Laureate
Amartya Sen once put it, has shown me how education can
dramatically change the lives of not only the students, but of
the entire society.
 Children and soldiers
near a mine-resistant,
ambush-protected tank
in Hawijah

Soldiers and Schools

courtesy of umesh Sharma

I recently read an article
in The New York Times by
Local government
Nicholas Kristof (online, of officials distribute
course), in which he argued backpacks

that it would be better for the

United States to fund schools
in Afghanistan and Iraq than
to keep U.S. soldiers on the
ground. My experiences have
shown me otherwise.
Many U.S. and inter-
national organizations are
involved in developmental
work to help modernize Iraq
and bring peace and stability
in the region, with a modern
education system being the
cornerstone of a modern
Iraq. However, security
concerns keep most of them
from frequently visiting the
smaller and remote towns
and villages needing the
most attention. For instance,
in my last six months here,
I saw USAID only once
visit the two school proj-
ects they funded here. We

Tarik Elkhatib
provided them security as Construction of
they went about their project Al Bessil School

inspections.
On the other hand, during
the same time period, U.S. forces have funded $5 million
of infrastructure in the district. We have visited our projects
almost every week. We have a much better understanding
of the local situation (political ambitions, tribal affiliations,
corrupt officials, urgent local issues). We stay here in remote
areas, close to the people, and meet them frequently, despite
terror attacks on our convoys. Thus, U.S. forces are uniquely
positioned to interact with and help the local populace on
a regular basis, despite the terror attacks. Without proper
security, schools cannot be built and students cannot study.
I cannot adequately describe the experience with-
out mentioning our support for Al Anwar Widows and
Orphans organization. This local NGO supports local
families whose fathers have been killed during the war.
Our unit funded the reconstruction of the organization’s
headquarters building, which was previously an abandoned
building next to the city council’s building. Despite being
attacked on the way to its opening ceremony, our unit has
continued providing sewing machines and other items that
support vocational training to the widows. A few days after
Christmas, I even played the role of Santa Claus when we
distributed more than 500 bags of humanitarian aid includ-
ing food, winter clothing, and blankets.
This is Operation New Dawn. This is not the war I signed
up for, but it has made me realize that the “advise, train, and
assist” mission is a way soldiers can establish long-term peace
and fight terrorism, while also being educators of mankind
and promoting modern democratic societies. Of course, we
do need our weapons to protect ourselves and the society.
— Umesh Sharma, Ed.M.’05, is a specialist in the Alpha
Company1-14 Infantry Battalion.

Harvard Graduate School of Education 11

 the appian way

studybreak Ryan Shepard, Ed.M.’11

Program: Education Policy
and Management
Tool for Change:
Advocacy
Hometown: Los
Angeles

K
ids need to be given chances. Student Government
Association president Ryan Shepard knows this.
He’s seen it in the classroom during his two years
with Teach For America. He’s seen it in his own life. It’s what
drew him to the Ed School. “Access can transform lives,” he
says. “I have faced significant obstacles, but my success is a
direct result of the chances I have been given.” It started his
freshman year in high school, when his parents lost their home
in Los Angeles and, for a year, their family, which includes five
kids, floated from one relative’s house to another. “It’s one of
those things that typically surprises people because the stereo-
type of homelessness in America tends towards the extreme,”
he says. “We were a middle class family with five kids and two
hardworking parents who did everything they could to hold
things together. Unfortunately, our situation got worse before it
got better.” But the next year, his mother helped get him into a
program in the city that allowed kids to enroll at high-performing
public schools on conditional bases. “El Segundo High School
was only 10 minutes from my house, but seemed like a different
world. The opportunities at the school were eons greater than
the prospects at my assigned school.”
By the time he was a senior, he had moved from remedial
math to AP courses, even becoming a math coach for a strug-
gling student. College as a goal seemed, for the first time, pos-
sible. He eventually enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta
and became, he says, “like a scout” for friends back home who
martha stewart

didn’t have the same opportunity to leave but wondered what

life could be beyond California.

12 Ed. • summer 2011

 Your parents struggled but also played a key role Most important acronym in the history of education:
in your ability to have chances. r NCLB
During elementary school I attended a church- 3 ESEA
r
sponsored private school that charged about $300 a r IDEA
month. Between my parents working multiple jobs r other

and contributions from my grandparents, my family

found a way to make the payment each month. I Lots of U.S. presidents
know how tough it was for my mom to make ends have called themselves

meet, but she never complained. If she had to pick the “education president.”

up an extra shift when she worked at McDonald’s Who really was/is?

or put in overtime on her city job, she did it. Obama.

Besides your family, what motivates you?
The moving hands on the clock. It reminds me that
good or bad, nothing last forever.
istockphoto.com/robodread
Your long-term plan is:
To move back to Los Angeles. I’d like to dive into
local politics as an advocate for education. I
haven’t figured out what title I want, but my
dream role will allow me to craft and influence
policy that improves access to quality education for

the most disadvantaged students in L.A.

You’re a big L.A.

sports fanatic. If
If you could meet with President Obama and you were starting
convince him to implement one education policy, a new team, Wilt
what would it be? Chamberlain or

I think the federal government is limited in Bill Russell?

its impact on education, but I’d encourage the Wilt. Better scorer
president to use his influence to promote increased and rebounder. Plus
accountability in public education. Race to the Top he scored 100 points
is a great start. in a game.

Harvard Graduate School of Education 13

 the appian way
homeroom Larsen Hall Classroom
S
igns across Harvard tout the
university’s newest slogan:
Green is the new crimson.
That is certainly the case with the
Ed School’s new 80-seat Larsen
Hall classroom, which is so green
that it recently received something
usually reserved for stellar students
and impressive faculty: a world-
recognized award. The space was
given the highest certification level
possible — platinum — by the Lead-
ership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) green building certifi-
cation program, and the distinction
of being the first LEED-CI platinum
classroom in the world.
14 Ed. • summer 2011
What better way to commute to a
1 worksite than with a green ma-
chine — an electric bicycle like the
battery-powered Pietzo used by Kevin
Bright, an assistant program manager
at the Harvard Green Building Services,
which served as a sustainability con-
sultant during the renovation.
Tiny occupancy control sensors on
2 the ceiling can tell when people are
in the room and adjust ventilation and
temperature.
Nearly all of the wood
3 used (83 percent)
comes from forests certi-
fied to be sustainable
and 25 percent of the
total material cost of the
project includes materials
made within 500 miles
of Cambridge. Paints and
carpet adhesives are low
in harmful air pollutants
called volatile organic
compounds.
 4
Using energy efficient
4 florescent bulbs and a
dimming system that turns
off lights when natural
light is sufficient, wattage
is reduced by 27 percent.
(This even happens in the
nearby janitor’s closet.) In
addition, renewable energy
certificates were purchased
from a wind power company
equivalent to 100 percent of
the anticipated electrical use.
Jason Carlson, director of operations,
6 and the school’s Green Team, were
Since recycling is a top priority at the driving force behind the renovations,
5 the Ed School, the project reused or which included another classroom on
recycled as much as possible, diverting the second floor, new
about 80 percent of the construction low-flow restrooms,
waste from local landfills. About 23 upgraded mechani-
percent of the material value used cal and electrical Watch a video
tanit sakakini
was made of postconsumer and/or systems, and filtered interview with
the Green Team.
preconsumer recycled content. water fountains.
Harvard Graduate School of Education 15
 the appian way

lessonplan Nonie Lesaux briefly

We asked our Facebook fans to tell us what one question they would Our vision for young people
ask an Ed School faculty member if given the opportunity. The one we and their futures has been
chose for this issue was from Maria Marimar. too narrow. That’s one of the
conclusions found in the
Maria Marimar How is Obama’s education policy newly released Pathways to
working for English language learners? Prosperity Project report,
Pathways to Prosperity:
Meeting the Challenge of
Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century,
which asserts that there should be many more
Associate Professor Nonie Lesaux The Obama options beyond just the four-year college.
administration has certainly been focused on education
reform, but I don’t know of a policy that focuses explicitly Smart thinking. In January,
on English language (EL) learners. While federal educa- Professor Kurt Fischer
tion legislation during the last administration focused on was given an honorary
the important goal of improving young children’s foundational reading professorship at East
skills, these skills alone will not inoculate children against later academ- China Normal University
ic difficulties. This is particularly the case for EL learners, who typically in Shanghai, the largest
master decoding and build reading fluency during the primary grades school for training teachers in
when basic stories are used, but who are more likely to struggle as the China. Fischer helped launch a new Mind, Brain,
language of middle and high school text becomes more complex and and Education Program at the university.
more discipline specific.
There are several policies (proposed, underway, or in place) by the We Make the Road by Walking.
Obama administration that broaden the focus on reading and aca- This was the theme of the
demic development, increasing attention to knowledge building and school’s annual Alumni of Color
language growth, from early childhood through adolescence — and Conference, held in March, which
those expansive policies may be especially beneficial for EL learners. included keynote speaker Patrica
For example, the blueprint for the next iteration of the Elementary and Hill Collins, M.A.T.’70.
Secondary Education Act (current version is the No Child Left Behind Act,
2002) proposes more accountability-based emphasis on assessment The National Academy Foundation recently added
and instruction that support content learning and higher-order skills. In Professor Robert Schwartz to their board of
addition, the Common Core Standards include significant attention to directors. Since the late 1980s, the New York–
language development for the overall school population, with a section based foundation has been partnering business
focused exclusively on standards for EL learners. Another Obama effort, leaders and educators.
The Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grants program, assists
states in creating or maintaining a comprehensive literacy plan for Professor Hiro Yoshikawa
children birth through grade 12; creating quality learning environments was recently named
across the age span has the potential to promote academic outcomes academic dean, starting this
for all children, including EL learners. Finally, there is the proposed fall. A developmental and
DREAM Act, and the White House’s Initiative on Educational Excellence community psychologist, he
for Hispanics, both of which relate to a large proportion of EL learners in joined the Ed School in 2006.
today’s classrooms.
Analyzing how federal education policies may impact particular groups Lecturer Rick Weissbourd,
of students is an important task. Thanks for raising this question about Ed.D.’87, was named
the large and growing EL population. director of the Ed School’s
Human Development
Want to see your question answered in a future issue of the magazine? and Psychology Program.
Link to reports and
Visit the Ed School on Facebook and become part of the conversation: Weissbourd replaces
related stories.
www.facebook.com/HarvardEducation. Lecturer Terrence Tivnan.

16 Ed. • summer 2011

 onmybookshelf Assistant Professor Natasha Kumar Warikoo, Ed.M.’97
Currently reading: In Other Rooms, Other
Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin. It’s
a collection of interconnected short
stories that move between New York
and rural and urban Pakistan.
First impressions: Fantastic. It’s an
unconventional view on domestic life in
Pakistan in a landowning family.
Last great read: A book that I loved
that comes to mind right now, as we’re
snowed in, is Orhan Pamuk’s Snow.
The book is about politics and religion
jill anderson
in Turkey, and takes place in a snow-
covered village. The writing is very
evocative, and the images of trudging
through snow stayed with me.
Favorite spot to curl up with a good
book: Most commonly, in bed! Ideally,
[I would be] on a warm beach under
an umbrella, with a full day and no
schedule ahead of me. But that hasn’t
happened in a while.
Noneducation genre of choice: South
Asian fiction. Also, my version of the
trashy novel is what seems to be a
new genre of “pop social science” —
Freakonomics, Nurture Shock, and Malcolm
Gladwell’s books. They simplify social
science research into juicy tidbits of
knowledge that are often counterin-
tuitive. I like seeing how social science
gets translated into information that
nonacademics find interesting.
Reading ritual: Because I read a lot
when traveling, I often end up using
tickets as bookmarks. I like to keep the
bookmark in the book after finishing.
When I come back to
a book, often the ticket
reminds me of where
I was at the time and Link to an EdCast
how that shaped my and story about
Warikoo’s new book.
reaction to the book.
Harvard Graduate School of Education 17
 the appian way
Your Successful
Preschooler
By Ann Densmore and
Margaret Bauman
A R
nyone who has spent time with young children can
tell you that not every child is naturally social. Some
are simply more engaged with their friends than oth-
ers. Fortunately, the latest research shows that children can
be taught — at very young ages — the skills they need to be
both academically and socially successful. In Your Successful
Preschooler, Ann Densmore, Ed.M.’91, and Margaret Bau-
man identify and examine 10 important traits that successful
children share as well as specific strategies for parents and
teachers to help further the development of these traits.
After years of studying and working with children, Densmore
and Bauman concluded that the most successful preschoolers
demonstrate 10 qualities that allow them to socialize well with
their peers and maintain healthy friendships: likability, achieve-
ment, happiness, strong moral character, resiliency, flexibility,
organization, leadership, social engagement, and passion
about learning. While most children eventually achieve com-
petency in each of these areas, those with learning or develop-
mental issues often have more difficulty acquiring these skills.
Through parental perseverance and positive intervention dur-
ing the early period of rapid brain development, the likelihood
of future social and academic success increases tremendously.
In a culture that continually emphasizes academic achieve-
ment alone, this book refocuses our attention on the value
of games and social interaction in the preschool years. The
authors show how facilitated play can improve a child’s emo-
tional connection with peers, and suggest various approaches
parents and educators can take to promote language growth
during play.
The strategies outlined are based on Densmore’s theory of
narrative play, which incorporates speech therapy with peer
relationships in natural settings. This play-based approach
to learning and social development is as effective as it is fun.
“Many parents who have followed this program have told us
that they were able to see their child in a totally different light
and were able to deepen their own relationships with them,”
Densmore writes. “They were thrilled to experience their child’s
joy in forming friendships that can last a lifetime.”
18 Ed. • summer 2011
Immigrants Raising Citizens:
Undocumented Parents and Their
Young Children’s Development
By Hirokazu Yoshikawa
oughly 4 million children born in the United States are
being raised by undocumented immigrant parents.
Policymakers often consider these immigrants to be an
economic or labor market problem to be solved, but few take into
account the human side of the issue. For example, these parents
are struggling to raise their children in the midst of financial dif-
ficulties and stressful work environments. The constant threat
of discovery and deportation limits their social contacts and
participation in public programs that could benefit their children’s
health, social interactions, and academic life. In Immigrants
Raising Citizens, Ed School Professor Hirokazu Yoshikawa offers
a compelling argument that the harsh experiences of these immi-
grant parents may have lifelong consequences for their children.
Rather than focus on undocumented immigrants as lawbreak-
ers or victims, Yoshikawa chooses to study their role as the prima-
ry caretakers of citizens whose adult productivity — critical to our
nation’s future — largely depends on their childhood experiences.
The book presents findings based on data from a three-year study
of 380 infants from Mexican, Dominican, Chinese, and African
American families, which includes comprehensive interviews, in-
home child assessments, and parent surveys.
Yoshikawa discovered that, in an effort to remain anonymous,
undocumented parents regularly avoid interactions with civic
officials who could offer resources to their children such as child-
care or food subsidies. For the same reason, they often have
fewer social ties, and many experience significantly more exploi-
tive work conditions. As a result, long hours, low pay, and minis-
cule job benefits can result in constant stress, heightened risk
of disease, and less energy to cognitively engage their children
at home. These children subsequently lack in early skill develop-
ment, which can negatively affect their school performance and
future job prospects.
With the future contributions of these
young citizens at stake, Immigrants Raising
Citizens is a timely study with far-reaching
implications for immigration policy, labor Listen to EdCasts
with Yoshikawa,
law enforcement, and the organization of Minow, and others.
family-oriented public programming.
 Harvard education press
A Cord of Three Strands: A New
Approach to Parent Engagement in
Schools
Soo Hong, Ed.D.’09; 2011
In Brown’s Wake:
Legacies of America’s Customized Schooling: Beyond Whole
Educational Landmark School Reform
Frederick Hess, Ed.M.’90, and Bruno
By Martha Minow Manno; 2011
N
Cutting Through the Hype: The Essential
early six decades after the landmark Brown v. Board Guide to School Reform
of Education court case established racial equality as Jane David, Ed.D.’74, and Larry Cuban;
a core commitment of American schools, the deci- 2010
sion still shapes the way we think about the concept of equal
Education for a Multicultural Society
opportunity in many diverse arenas. In her most recent book, In Ed.D. Candidates Kolajo Paul Afolabi,
Brown’s Wake, Martha Minow, Ed.M.’76, dean of Harvard Law Ed.M.’10; Candice Bocala; Raygine
School, examines the ways in which Brown’s legacy continues to DiAquoi, Ed.M.’11; Julia Hayden,
Ed.M.’07; Irene Liefshitz, Ed.M.’09;
affect equality issues in public and in school choice programs,
and Soojin Susan Oh, Ed.M.’10; 2011
and argues that the terms placed on such initiatives have real
repercussions for both the character of American education
and civil society itself. other books
In addition to supporting racial equality in schools, Brown gave
20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and
rise to numerous social movements seeking educational equal- Arts Education for the 21st Century
ity for students across all lines of difference, including gender Ed.D. Candidate Edward Clapp,
and sexual orientation, religion, language, physical handicaps, Ed.M.’07; 2010
immigration status, and socioeconomic level. However, the
Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the
debate among parents, schools, and policymakers as to whether Global City
the ruling calls for all-inclusive classrooms is still very much Assistant Professor Natasha Kumar
alive, Minow writes, with schools across the nation appearing Warikoo, Ed.M.’97; 2011
more segregated than ever. While school choice has emerged
Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports
in some districts as a strategy for racial mixing, self-separation Digital Learning
by language, gender, ethnicity, and disability is becoming more Renee Hobbs, Ed.D.’85; 2010
prevalent in magnet and pilot schools, charter schools, and many
Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendship and the
private schools. In exploring these issues, the author engages
Crisis of Connections
deeply in public policy debates over separate versus mixed edu- Niobe Way, Ed.D.’94; 2011
cation, legislative interpretation, and social integration.
Minow highlights Brown’s strength as a beacon in the Differentiated Assessment: How to
Assess the Learning Potential of Every
struggle for educational equality for every type of student, not
Student 6–12
just in the United States, but also abroad. She ultimately traces Evangeline Harris Stefanakis, C.A.S.’91,
the work of equality advocates in schools throughout Northern Ed.D.’95; 2010
Ireland, South Africa, and Eastern Europe, investigating the vari-
The Handbook of Reflection and Reflec-
ous ways in which the case has become an inspiration for many
tive Inquiry: Mapping a Way of Knowing
agents of change. While Minow recognizes the difficulty and for Professional Reflective Inquiry
complexity of achieving social integration, she urges renewed Nona Lyons, Ed.D.’82; 2010
commitment to the cause as the ripples in Brown’s wake con-
Life Sustaining Organizations —
tinue to spread.
A Design Guide
Michael Sales, Ed.D.’84, and Anika
— Briefs written by Mateo Corby Savage; 2011
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Education Reform: Ambitious Change
in the Nation’s Most Complex School
System
Jennifer O’Day, Ed.M.’73, Catherine
Bitter, and Louis Gomez; 2011
Equal Opportunity in Higher Education:
The Past and Future of California’s
Proposition 209
Eric Grodsky and Michal Kurlaender,
Ed.M.’97, Ed.D.’05; 2010
Spotlight on Technology in Education
Nancy Walser, Ed.M.’10; 2011
Teaching Talent: A Visionary Framework
for Human Capital in Education
Rachel Curtis, Ed.M.’94, and Judy
Wurtzel; 2010
Prioritizing Urban Children, Teachers,
and Schools Through Professional
Development Schools
Ronald Glass, Ed.M.’72, and Pia
Lindquist Wong; 2009
The Shaping of Thought: ThinkLinks and
Metacognition. A Teacher’s Guide to
Thinking in Response to Literature
Frank Lyman Jr., Ed.M.’60, Charlene
Lopez, and Arlene Mindus; 2011
Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fight-
ing for the Soul of America’s Toughest
High School
Alexander Russo, Ed.M.’91; 2011
Through Veterans’ Eyes: The Iraq and
Afghanistan Experience
Larry Minear, M.A.T.’63; 2010
The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of
Australia’s Convict Women
Deborah Swiss, Ed.M.’75, Ed.D.’82;
2010
Urban School Leadership
Professor Thomas Payzant, M.A.T.’63,
C.A.S.’66, Ed.D.’68; 2010
Whole Child Education
John Miller, M.A.T.’67; 2010
19
20Ed.
• summer 2011
Gaby Jalbert/istockphoto.com
closing
time By Laura Pappano

Schools close for

many reasons: tight
budgets, dismal
performance,
underenrollment,
and failing
buildings. We often
ask why and when,
but rarely ever how.
 I
n mid-November, just as Justin Vernon, Ed.M.’06,
was settling into the academic year and his first solo
principalship at the Farragut Elementary School
in Boston, he received a phone call at home. His
supervisor was giving him a heads up: At a principal’s
professional development meeting scheduled for the
next day, he should know that even though the Farragut
hadn’t been on any lists — well, Vernon might learn that
closing was a possibility.
Sure enough, at the meeting he was told that his school
was among 10 Superintendent Carol Johnson was recom-
mending be shut down (six others would be merged with
other schools). In stunningly short order, Vernon’s school
year changed. And while his oft-stated goal that the Farragut
make adequate yearly progress has not shifted in the months
since, so much else has.
For Vernon, an Ohio-bred educator who favors suits,
bow ties, and the vocabulary of ed reform, the closure has
changed the content and timbre of his work. Even as he
guides his instructional leadership team to give kids more
practice analyzing data — stuff he relishes — he tries to
get ahead of feelings of uncertainty among staff, students,
and parents. Speaking in his high-ceilinged office with
rickety and mismatched BPS-issue furniture and nibbling
on prepackaged Granny Smith apple slices, he says plainly
that closing was not something he imagined or trained for.
“This,” he says, “has been a learning process for me.”
How does a principal lead in this setting? Do you fight?
Relent? What happens to the kids? The families? The teach-
ers? The quilt hanging in the office showing the handprints
of an entire fifth-grade graduating class? Where does that
go? Eager to drive instructional fixes, how do you alter the
timeline when there is no next year? Bite off less? Or more?
Better at When Than How
As school districts around the country grapple with turnaround
strategies and fiscal realities, school closure (and consolidation)
has become a popular option in districts from Baltimore to
Detroit, from Boston to Denver, even in rural places like Maine
and North Dakota. According to the National Center for
Education Statistics, 1,515 elementary and seconary schools
were closed during the 2008–09 school year, while just 149
were closed in 2007–08 and 242 in 2005–06.
Districts, of course, shut schools for different reasons. In
Baltimore City, closure is for poor performance, not cost-cut-
ting; Washington, D.C., has closed schools to save money and
better use district resources given that they have 150,000 seats
and only 46,000 students filling them. School closure, in other
words, has become an answer to falling enrollments, poor
performance, and safety issues — or a combination thereof.
22 Ed. • summer 2011
While districts have developed their own guidelines for
when to close a school, Bryan Hassel, cofounder of Public
Impact, an education consulting firm in Chapel Hill,
N.C., says there has been less thought given to how closings
should unfold.
“Some districts have gotten very good at that analytical
process,” he says. “But we are much lousier at engaging
parents and the community and much lousier at … what we
do for the students.”
This has school and district leaders facing a task that is
more emotionally charged than it appears. When Margery
Yeager, special assistant for transformation management
for the D.C. public schools, attended her first school closing
meeting in 2008 — she’s now helped close 28 schools — the
meeting was so contentious that, she recalls, “I honestly
thought at the time, ‘I don’t know how we will make this hap-
pen because there is just such vocal opposition.’”
Emotional Ups and Downs
For Vernon, the Farragut’s inclusion on the closure list drew
an immediate and emotional response that was suddenly
a powerful force in his school. He broke the news in an
adrenaline-charged staff meeting that one teacher said felt
like a movie scene as they decided to band together and fight
the decision. Suddenly, teachers were making signs, planning
rallies, and speaking at school committee meetings. Vernon,
along with teachers and parents, feverishly drafted a proposal
for making the Farragut into an in-district charter school–like
“innovation school.”
The effort failed, and by mid-December the school
committee voted to close the school. While there was a spirit
of camaraderie, fourth-grade teacher Margery Mendenhall
is not sure the fatigue and stirred-up feelings of anger were
worth it.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would try to close my
ears and focus on my classroom and my children,” she says,
adding that there is a big transition ahead for students. “I’m
concerned about behavior problems — about a new school,
new teachers, new friends, new commute. Parents are anx-
ious about logistics.”
Vernon has tried to anticipate concerns. In March, as
families began planning for next year, he invited principals
to the Farragut so parents could meet them. He organized
field trips to visit schools. Still, aware that state standards tests
were coming up, Vernon guided an effort to raise attendance,
which had slipped to 89 percent. Thanks to a class versus
class pizza party competition, it rose to 93 percent.
In leading his staff, Vernon reflects more than usual and
reads Ronald Heifetz, author of many leadership books,
including Leadership Without Easy Answers. He feels himself

nick findley
treading new ground, seeking academic gains (keep up the
emphasis on writing!) while acknowledging emotions.
“I have found myself speaking to my staff in a different
way than I ever had before,” he says. He has vowed to help
them find positions and in March was looking over resumes,
conducting mock interviews, and networking with other
principals.
“I don’t know what the effects are of me saying, ‘I know
this hurts’ or ‘I know this is difficult,’” he says. “But I think
it’s important to do and to try. To say that we are in this
together and we are having these emotions, maybe in some
way just articulating it helps.”
Why Closing Is So Darned Hard
To read the text of the U.S. Department of Education
School Improvement Grant program with its four turn-
around models, closing a school sounds easy. You shut it and
move kids to a better one. The problem is that schools are
not simply places where kids earn (or don’t earn) passing test
scores. They are not even places where neat instructional
practices unfold to deliver content knowledge and skills to
students in inquiry-based curriculum. Well, they are, but not
to students and families, says Justin Cohen, president of the
School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight.
“As an educator I think about instruction, policies, and
processes driving instruction,” he says. “Parents think about
the place where their kid shows up every day. They think
about the marching band.” While Cohen says closure is a key
reform tool (“carrots alone will not get you there”), because
of the divergent ways in which educators and families views
schools, he says that how leaders engage the community
matters — a lot.
Professor Thomas Payzant, M.A.T.’63, C.A.S.’66,
Ed.D.’68, former superintendent of Boston Public Schools
from 1995 to 2006 and author of Urban School Leadership,
learned this the hard way. Near the beginning of his ten-
ure, Payzant says he decided to close the Wheatley Middle
School in Roxbury because enrollments were sagging and the
Dearborn Middle School was nearby.
“I thought my logic was impeccable,” says Payzant. “Why
have two middle schools so close together when the number
choosing the Wheatley was fairly low?” The plan however,
was met with outrage and looked, he recalls, like the new
white superintendent closing a school in the heart of a
community of color as his first big move. “I realized it was a
mistake, and I had to admit that and back off,” he says.
Don’t ‘Sneak Up on the Community’
Payzant says the experience taught him “not to sneak up on the
community.” And yet, says Lecturer Karen Mapp, Ed.M.’93,
Ed.D.’99, director of the Education Policy and Management
Program, this is precisely what districts continue to do.
“We tend to make these decisions behind closed doors
and deliver the information and then wonder why people
are angry and upset,” she says. Too many leaders “have a
deficit model” in which they “make the assumption that the
community has nothing to offer the school improvement
process,” she says.
Engaging the community is one of those things in which
it matters how it’s done. While some districts consider angry
shouting meetings part of the school closure process that must
be endured, Mapp says genuine community involvement
can actually be useful. In the Baltimore City Public Schools,
where under CEO Andres Alonso, Ed.M.’99, Ed.D.’06, the
district closed 26 schools between 2008 and 2010 (one more is
closing this year), leaders are relentlessly inclusive.
“In Baltimore, there is a very clear sense that a school is
an ongoing act of community imagination about what we
want for our kids,” says Michael Sarbanes, director of the
district’s Office of Community Engagement. “If you look
at a school as a place where experts do expert intervention
around education, when that is failing, what you do is kick
out all the people who are supposed to be doing it. But there
is not a community dimension to that model.”
By seeking community input — not when a school is
already recommended for closure by Alonso (to then be voted
Harvard Graduate School of Education 23
 on by the school committee), but in the stage before, as leaders
think through which schools to recommend to Alonso — in
Honoring the History
It is not surprising that a school closure can make a com-
Baltimore, community ideas are more than decorative. As the
munity feel singled out and disrespected. What can leaders
result of such meetings, Sarbanes says the district was persuad-
do to lessen tensions? In Baltimore, Sarbanes says district
ed to give one struggling school another chance and to let a
leaders must publicly take some responsibility for failed
final senior class finish up, even as other grades were curtailed.
interventions or more that might have been done. And com-
Call it a “collaborative offensive,” but Sarbanes argues that
munity discussions, he says, must acknowledge that even in
“you can take more radical steps by engaging the community.”
troubled schools, good things are happening and there are
When school closures are embedded in a strategy to create
gifted teachers.
better school choices for children, it feels like less of an attack.
“You have to honor that,” he says. “You want to recognize
This is not to say that there aren’t angry shouting meetings in
that people in this school are trying really hard and doing
Baltimore — there are. “There is good anger in those angry
their best. Then you say, ‘Let’s look at the data.’”
conversations,” says Sarbanes. “But there is the widespread
In other words, schools being closed cannot be painted
sense that the school system is trying to do the right things for
with a scarlet F. In fact, Sarbanes says the district created
kids. You can sort of be angry within the family.”
a policy last year aimed at recycling the names of closed
schools. When new schools are opened, he says, they look at
the list of closed schools to see if the name may be resurrected.
Will the Kids Be All Right? These are details that school leaders say allow more
When communities are outside the closure conversation,
latitude for reform. On the other side of the country, keeping
Mapp says it feels as if “reform is done to them, not with
a school name was not a question: It was essential to closing
them.” That was what Ben Kirshner, assistant professor
Sacramento High School (“Sac High”) in 2003 and reopen-
at the school of education at the University of Colorado–
ing it as a charter school with four academies.
Boulder, found when he tracked the effect of an urban high
“It was the second oldest high school west of the
school closing on its 550 displaced students.
Mississippi and you have so many graduates and alumni who
“There was a policy narrative — there are too many seats,
have a really strong connection to the institution,” says P.K.
budget problems, it’s a chronically bad school, so we are
saving these kids by closing it,” says Kirshner. Yet, he says,
students did not view the school — with a deep history in
the African American community — as a horrible place. He
says closure was “interpreted as an attack or something done
against their will that was harmful to them.”
Kirshner’s study, published last September in Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis, showed dropout rates among
displaced students rose from 7 to 15 percent; the likelihood
of graduating fell from 71 to 49 percent. Study coauthor
Matthew Gaertner, who produced calculations for this article
that were not part of the published study, said displaced
student test scores dropped 12 percent in reading, 9 percent
in math, and 19 percent in writing compared with what they
would have scored had the school not closed (using modeling
developed from historic test data).
The study also included surveys and interviews with
115 displaced students in which 25 percent reported being
mistreated by youths or adults at new schools, blamed on the
stigma of coming from a failed school. Forty percent de-
scribed a loss of friendships; 40 percent also reported weaker
relationships with adults at their new school. Only 8 percent
appreciated the new school’s greater program offerings.
Because the study tracked students for just one year after
Passigatti/Dreamstime.com

closure it’s possible that they may perform better and feel
happier as time passes.

24 Ed. • summer 2011


Diffenbaugh, a current student in the Ed.L.D. Program and
former principal at a Sac High charter academy. “It’s not as
easy as saying, ‘Let’s close it and start fresh.’”
Opposition to the closure was overcome because the
incoming charter was run by St. Hope Corp., founded
by former NBA star and Sac High alum Kevin Johnson.
Diffenbaugh says leaders sought to show respect, keeping
the school colors (purple and white), mascot (the dragon),
hymn, and motto.
“We really tried to tell the story as, ‘We are not getting
rid of this horrible institution’ — although it was failing kids
and was a huge injustice — but we tried to tell the public
that, ‘We are revitalizing the school to restore its proper
place in the community,’” he says.
At the same time, some things had to change — and fast.
“Kids had become used to a culture where they could pretty
much do what they pleased,” he says. “When we got there, they
had ‘Freshmen Fridays.’ Upperclassmen could dump [fresh-
men] in the trashcan, literally. That had become an accept-
ed rite of passage.” When they halted it, Diffenbaugh recalls,
“a lot of kids — and even parents — were pushing back.”
When changing such troubling habits raises objections, it’s
clear why it took several years to end open campus at lunch,
require uniforms, have teachers greet each student with a
handshake, make home visits routine, and place administra-
tors beyond the school’s gates so students could safely walk to
catch city buses.
“Changing the culture of a school is probably the most
difficult thing to do,” Diffenbaugh says. “You tell a story; the
narrative has to be about restoring the school to prominence,
yet your program has to be fundamentally different.”
Lessening Disruption
School closings are clearly about more than implementing
policy, which is why so-called “angry shouting meetings”
have come to feel like part of the process. Yet it’s important
to realize that this is not just venting. “There are questions
buried under that anger,” observes Yeager.
Difficult as it may seem, she says, leaders must engage
students, parents, teachers — and listen. Last year, for
example, when the Scott Montgomery Elementary School
in Washington, D.C., was consolidated into the Walker Jones
Educational Complex, parents objected loudly. A key prob-
lem? The new school wasn’t far away, but required children
to cross New York Avenue, a major artery.
“It’s like a highway,” says Melissa Martin, Ed.M.’03, prin-
cipal at the Montgomery and now principal at Walker Jones.
The district promised crossing guards, but it didn’t satisfy
worried parents. Finally, the district agreed to a bus from the
old school to the new one. That concession, says Martin, let
How does a principal lead in
this setting? Do you fight?
Relent? What happens to
the kids? The families? The
teachers? The quilt hanging
in the office showing the
handprints of an entire fifth-
grade graduating class?
Where does that go?
her community feel heard and allowed the transition to move
forward. Later, they organized a barbecue to bring together
families from Montgomery and Walker Jones, which included
an assistant principal from each school.
Closing a school in any city demands keeping community
members in the loop, if only to admit what you don’t know,
says Yeager. She learned that lesson after arriving at one
school closing meeting at which the community had no idea
their school was being shut down at the end of the year, she
says. “We had had done such a bad job of communication.”
To prevent information voids, Yeager now forms a “transi-
tion team” at each school facing closuring or consolidation,
drawing together principals, parents, community members,
teachers, and students. She urges them to work through how
events should unfold and how to communicate. She also
encourages connections, as when students at two consolidat-
ing schools decided to meet before school opened. “Student
government reps met at a McDonald’s and talked to other
student reps about what the issues are. Kids at all levels are
anxious about the transition.”
Yes, on data sheets, schools are tracked on performance,
enrollment, and judged against budget savings targets. But
in living experience, they represent webs of relationships.
Closing — no way around it — is a major disruption.
One recent morning, four fourth graders who gathered in
Vernon’s office snacked on leftovers from the celebratory
student-of-the-month breakfast and shared conflicted feelings
about the Farragut’s closure. Jasmani was excited about
maybe taking a bus for the first time, but sad not to graduate
from the same elementary school as his brother. Illannysh
said it “might be a good opportunity.” Abigail was “kind of
sad and kind of happy.” Nasir, a gentle-seeming boy with
a deliberate way of speaking, may have captured it best. “I
think this is a lot about the goodbyes,” he said, pausing to
articulate his worry. “I’m kind of a hard friend-maker.”
— Laura Pappano is freelance writer and author of Inside School
Turnarounds. Ed.
Harvard Graduate School of Education 25
26 Ed. • summer 2011
quiz
KIDS By Lory Hough
illustrations by LynN rowe reed

The toss-up round has just ended. Billy Costa, the show’s quizmaster
and a well-known radio and television personality in Boston, looks
at the eight high school students standing behind two podiums and
throws up his arms.
“How did you know all of that?” he says. Then turning to the
audience he hams it up even more. “I’ve never felt more insignificant!”
The parents, grandparents, siblings, classmates, teachers, and
vice principals who make up the audience laugh along, knowing, of
course, that Costa is only half joking.
These students are brainy — brainy enough and quick enough on
the buzzer to have made it to the qualifying round of High School Quiz
Show, a weekly academic quiz competition produced by Boston’s PBS
station, WGBH. Now in its second season, the Jeopardy-like show has
become an instant hit.
“People are hungry for this,” says producer Hillary Wells, noting
that when they initially put out feelers last year to see if public schools
in Eastern Massachusetts would be interested in such a competition,
more than 70 signed on in just two days.
With unscripted dialogue that includes words like “recursion” and
“mycorrhizae,” and real students who don’t look like they just walked
off the set of Gossip Girl, these kinds of competitions don’t sound
like something people hunger for. But several decades after the first
matchup pitted one school against another, academic quiz competi-
tions for high school students are still as popular as ever.
 That’s Entertainment
H ow did this happen? One reason for the continuing
popularity may be their genesis in the entertainment
world. Vox Pop, which started in 1932 and ran on
KTRH radio in Houston, is widely considered to be the
first quiz-type show in the country. According to On the Air:
The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, advertising salesmen for
the station would approach people on the street with their
portable microphones and ask questions, offering token
prizes for correct answers. Listeners loved the show, and,
within a couple of years, Professor Quiz premiered on CBS
radio, adding a cash prize to the mix — $25 for stumping
“Professor Quiz” with a question. Later that decade, shows
like Pot O’Gold; Information, Please; and Doctor IQ were also run-
ning. Eventually, colleges got into the act with the 1953 radio
debut of College Bowl, often referred to as the “varsity sport of
the mind.” In 1959, College Bowl moved to national television
and became the model for many high school competitions
that followed.
When exactly the first high school match did follow is
unclear, but according to Guinness World Records, the first
televised competition aired on October 7, 1961, with a show
that is still running — It’s Academic! Extremely popular in the
Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas, the show has won
eight Emmys and includes alumni such as Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, New York Senator Charles Schumer, and
writer Michael Chabon. Actress Sandra Bullock came to
one taping as part of her high school’s cheerleading squad.
Across the country, other televised and nontelevised quiz
competitions for teens have proven just as popular, not only
with the students involved, but also for entire communities.
Some sponsors even give major financial support for decades.
Wells says one of those popular shows, As Schools Match
Wits, was actually the catalyst behind WGBH’s decision
to invest in a new program last year. For more than four
decades, As Schools Match Wits brought together schools
from the western half of Massachusetts, as well as parts of
Connecticut. The show was so beloved in the area that when
the local television station that produced it decided to pull
the plug in 2006, petitions were circulated and newspapers
covered every angle of the story. Eventually, Westfield State
College teamed up with the local PBS station to resurrect
the show. That passionate level of interest piqued the atten-
tion of WGBH executives, Wells says. High School Quiz Show
was born. Now the two competitions meet at the end of their
seasons for a statewide face-off.
Of course, not all academic competitions at the high
school level are televised. Most, in fact, are held in school
cafeterias or auditoriums, without cameras or cheering
audiences or Sandra Bullock–like cheerleaders. They can
be simple, intramural events designed for students at one
school (or even students against teachers), or more orga-
28 Ed. • summer 2011
nized (and more competitive) interscholastic matches with
students traveling from school to school, usually based on
geographic location or athletic conference. The folks who
start and organize competitions run the gamut: television sta-
tions (often PBS-affiliated), individual schools, state associa-
tions, for-profits started by former players, and volunteers
who want to encourage a love of learning. Names — many
favoring the word “bowl” — include Quiz Bowl, Brainstormers,
Scholastic Bowl, Brain Games, Knowledge Bowl, MasterMinds,
Scholar Quiz Bowl, Battle of the Brains, the Granite State
Challenge, Academic Decathalon, Academic League, and
Academic Super Bowl.
Whether the matches are televised or not, relaxed or com-
petitive, one of the key reasons these quiz competitions remain
so popular goes back to their Vox Pop roots: They’re fun.
Current Harvard Gradute School of Education student
Rachel Hargreaves-Heald, Ed.M.’11, saw the fun side when
she worked on High School Quiz Show last season as a produc-
tion assistant.
“During taping, I would sometimes have to go into the
studio between rounds. Every time I walked in, I was struck,
though not surprised, by how much fun everyone was hav-
ing,” she says. “Audience members were holding banners
and signs, wearing t-shirts that supported their team, and
were clearly having a blast celebrating the achievements
of the students. I felt such a sense of gratitude to have been
involved in a program that so clearly accomplished what it
set out to.”
Joanne Marshall, Ed.M.’96, Ed.D.’00, competed during
her high school days in Aledo, Ill., and later coached for a
few years. In addition to “ just being fun,” she says quiz com-
petitions also help students build friendships — something
that isn’t always easy to do in high school.
“It provides some camaraderie for kindred spirits,” she says.
“The team I coached was an odd mix of personalities who I
am certain would never have come together otherwise.”
Which points to one of the biggest misconception about
high school quiz competitions: that they are only for the
nerdy kids. (One student on New Hampshire’s Granite State
Challenge even poked fun at the stereotype, wearing tape
around the bridge of his heavy black glasses.)
“There were about 12 people on our academic team and
there was a mix: athletes, student council, a cheerleader,
Future Farmers of America members, and some choir/
drama people,” says Marshall, who was in the jazz band.
Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08, played all four years at his
high school in Granville, Ohio, traveling afterschool during
the week for round robin–style meets with other schools and
occasionally competing in regional meets and on WOSU’s
In the Know. He says stereotypical labels often associated with
high school didn’t really exist when he competed, either.
 Format for 100
If you’ve never seen a high school quiz competition, think Jeopardy! but with teen-
agers, two teams, and without the answer being phrased as a question. Although
every competition has its own format, most high school quiz competitions operate
in similar manners. The schools, usually four students on each team, face off,
“My school was a very fluid academic and answering a series of questions asked by the “quizmaster” for points. There are
social environment,” he says, adding that he usually a series of “rounds.” During early rounds, the person who buzzes in first
played drums, soccer, and tennis; did public gets first shot at answering the question; wrong answers often don’t cost teams
service projects; and was on the student council. points. General questions are asked during most rounds; other rounds focus on
“A lot of kids did seven or eight [extracurricu- specific categories such as Philosophy 101 or Creepy Crawlies. A lightning round
lars] in addition to the quiz team. They were involves rapid-fire questions posed to both teams in a short period of time — a
on a sports team and played an instrument. minute or so. Sometimes, competitions include head-to-head matches between
It wasn’t seen as a nerdy thing. It was just one single players from each team. Students usually answer questions individually,
more thing that we did as students.” although during the category rounds, students are allowed to huddle and, as a
Wells, too, says that times have changed. team, come up with one answer. The team with the most points at the end wins.
During the filming of one High School Quiz Show
match, students offered a range of background
information on themselves — some borderline nerdy (one “It was the closest school to the Opaskwayak Cree
has wanted to run an airline since he was a little kid, another Nation, where I grew up,” she says. Because the show was
excels at chess), some less so (captain of the cross-country popular in that part of Canada, and because there were few
team, ballet since fourth grade, a karate brown belt). channels, “everyone would watch it.”
“For so long, being intellectual was associated with being When she was in the 11th grade, she worked at the local
a nerd,” Wells says. “But it’s exciting to break down the IGA grocery store. She was there the night the episode with
smart/athlete barriers the way that Glee has broken barri- her school competing aired.
ers — kids singing but also playing football. I love that we’re “One of my coworkers brought a TV to work, and the
contributing to that.” store manager set it up at the front so the staff and custom-
However, even with barriers broken, athletes still usually ers could watch,” she says. “I recall being teased by a few
get most of the glory in high school. Quiz competitions are people the next day about a question that I had answered
one way to show that doing well in school is also something incorrectly. I knew that was their way of acknowledging that
to celebrate. they were proud to see me on the show. After a show, people
“There are so many different ways students can excel, but would always stop my parents and grandmother to tell them
not all types of achievement get the same recognition,” says they watched. I don’t recall ever seeing another aboriginal
Hargreaves-Heald. “I think shows like this are important person on the show, or even on TV for that matter, in all of
because they showcase an area that might otherwise get the years I watched, so I suppose it was significant for our
overlooked.” community at the time.”
For Rich Reddick, Ed.M.’98, Ed.D.’07, being a part of Significant, too, is how fairly open these kinds of teams
the Academic Decathalon team (as well as the Certamen are to all students at most schools, at least when it comes
team, which focused exclusively on Latin) earned him huge to being on a team. Joe Caulfield, the coach at Blake High
praise at Albert S. Johnston High School in Austin, Texas — School in Chevy Chase, Md., says that any student who is
at least with the staff. academically eligible — C average or better — can join their
“Johnston was probably the lowest-performing high team. Reddick’s coach, Ms. Bishop, cherry-picked a few of
school in Austin at the time. It’s since been closed because the “smartest” kids for the starting team, although it was
of not making adequate yearly progress four years running,” open to anyone who wanted to join. For Robertson, quiz
he says. “For a school struggling for academic success, our bowl was an afterschool club open to everyone, but, similar
teachers and principal were very proud. It earned us rock to Reddick, they would “unofficially” recruit students who
star status among the adults in the school although we prob- were in the top 5 percent of the class for the starting team.
ably placed poorly at the district competition.” “There’s a good correlation between being good at high
Having a team also said to outsiders: We’re more than just school,” Robertson says, “and being good at academic
the dropouts and gangs you read about in the newspapers. teams.” He also notes that in all four years that his team
“We wanted to show everyone that kids from our com- played in the school league, they never lost a match.
munity were interested in learning,” he says. At matches, “I
remember the surprise when we showed up.”
Alexandria Wilson, Ed.M.’95, Ed.D.’07, and her Reach Practice and Buzzing
for the Top teammates also received recognition, not only for
themselves but also for the larger community in The Pas,
Manitoba, about 500 miles from Winnipeg. I t’s the first question of the High School Quiz Show match,
and Roopa, a senior at Acton-Boxborough High School,
jumps on the buzzer.

Harvard Graduate School of Education 29

 “Freud,” she says in answer to who founded psychoanalysis.
It’s not surprising that Roopa was the first to earn points:
Not only did she spend the past two days reading an entire
children’s encyclopedia (hard copy), but along with her
teammates, she has spent countless hours practicing her
buzzer skills.
“Timing has a lot to do with it,” says Kay Steeves, one
of Roopa’s coaches. This became apparent when the team
scrimmaged a neighboring school. “One of the kids from
the other school kept buzzing all the time. He knew he’d
have a few seconds after buzzing to think about the answer.
It was a strategy.”
Marshall remembers the buzzer system at her high
school — a homemade contraption of scrap lumber and
Radio Shack parts, built by Mr. Hoffman, the physics
teacher, and a few industrious students.
“It was a big wooden scoreboard with boxes that lit up,
literally with a light bulb, when one of us pushed a hand-held
buzzer,” she says. “Eventually the parents and school chipped
in and bought us a real buzzer system.”
Nowadays, having a real buzzer system is essential, say
most players and coaches.
“Any team that wants to be competitive in these kinds of
contests has to have buzzers with which to practice,” says
Caulfield. “Speed is essential, and response times among
players probably only vary by hundredths of a second.”
That is why one team of students competing on High
School Quiz Show last year stopped using click pens during
practice sessions — it was too hard to tell who clicked first —
and upgraded to a computer program and handheld clickers.
30 Ed. • summer 2011
As Quincy High School student Michaela told The Patriot
Ledger about the switch, “It’s said you could know everything
you need to know about a subject, but if you can’t get the
timing of the buzzers right, your team’s doomed.”
From the organizers’ standpoint, the importance of the
buzzer can lead to heated discussion about buzzing rules.
“How many seconds do you allow them before they can
buzz in?” says Wells, noting one of the technical nuances
they scrutinized during initial planning sessions. “Do you let
them interrupt when a question is being read or lock them
out, as they do on Jeopardy? And do you vary depending on
the type of question?”
Most high school competitions allow students to buzz in
as soon as they know, or think they know, an answer. Jeopardy!
makes players wait until the question has fully been asked.
Robertson says, with all of the competitions he was involved
with, you could buzz in at any time, which made it more fair.
“It did promote quick recall more than buzzer speed,” he
says, referring to the ability to summon facts from memory.
So if the abilities to buzz in quickly and summon facts
instantaneously are key skills to doing well in quiz competi-
tions, do quiz kids even need to read entire encyclopedia sets
or study before matches? Caulfield from Blake High School
says absolutely — both practice and study are essential,
“even for these smart kids.”
For Marshall, practice meant three times a week before
school, plus flipping through trivia books at home or read-
ing to one another on long car rides to matches. But, she
admits, the questions were often about things they had been
learning in school.
Children & Teenagers
You don’t have to be of voting age to be famous. Identify the
following well-known children and teenagers, real and fictional
(answers on the bottom of the page):
1. A boy king of Egypt, his tomb was found in 1922.
2. She was the first English child born in America.
3. This Dickens orphan asked for “some more” gruel.
4. In Amsterdam, during World War II, this Jewish girl kept a diary.
5. At age 16, he wrote music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
6. As a boy in ancient Macedon, he tamed the horse Bucephalus.
7. He was just a teenager in 2002 when he published Eragon.
8. This Biblical hero was just a youth when he killed Goliath.
Source: It’s Academic!, Washington, D.C.
“Math problems, American authors, and history,” she says
and then recites a question she remembers being asked: “What
poem begins, ‘Whose woods these are I think I know . . .’?”
Reddick, who would later compete on Jeopardy!, Wheel of
Fortune, Win Ben Stein’s Money, and Who Wants to be Millionaire?,
sometimes played the Trivial Pursuit board game with his
teammates but didn’t like practicing this way.
“People would accuse me of reading the cards and
memorizing the answers,” he says. “Seriously.” They also
took practice tests and were exposed to what many consider
the “holy grail of trivia” — E.D. Hirsch’s The Dictionary of
Cultural Literacy.
“I always joked that you could give the book to an alien
from outer space, and if he/she memorized it, he/she could
fit in Western society fairly well,” Reddick says.
Robertson found that competing during the week against
other schools was a great way to practice. It also helped
prevent stage fright.
“Repetition is built in, which helps,” he says. “The set of
questions asked, they’re not completely off the map and are
rarely things you’ve never heard of. It’s quick recall, so if you
practice enough, you tend to feel comfortable.”
Although Beth Cooper Benjamin, Ed.M.’02, Ed.D.’06,
had appeared in nearly every school play at her small
school in Rochester, N.Y., and had one professional role as a
fifth-grader on a local show, “I was definitely nervous about
appearing on TV.” The nervousness, however, didn’t seem to
affect her performance, as her coach, Mr. Cowett, noted the
following year in his college recommendation for her: “Beth
has the largest store of worthless information I have ever seen
in a human being.”
Surprisingly, with televised competitions, the excitement
that builds can actually help nervous students.
“That extra adrenaline — the bands and the cheering
audience — works to their benefit,” says Susan Lechner,
who joined It’s Academic! as senior editor only a couple of
years after it began. “We’ve rarely found that it works against
them. They feel excited to be a part of this.”
Questions
I t’s the end of round three at High School Quiz Show, the
category round. While Ron, the stage manager, keeps the
audience’s energy up by blaring music and getting a vice
principal to make up his own rap about the competition, the
two coaches for Acton-Boxborough are backstage with the
show’s staff, challenging an answer given by a student on the
Natick team.
This is to be expected, says Wells.
“You’re going to get challenges. “There’s no way around
it,” she says. “Our writer is at each taping and has a list of
alternate possible answers and all of her sources.”
The questions are a big deal. Most high school competi-
tions base questions on what’s being learned in school. Wells
says their questions get sent to the Massachusetts Department
of Elementary and Secondary Education before being used.
“Their curriculum experts review them to make sure
we’re not completely out of standards,” she says. “The ques-
tions are the show. There can’t be another answer.”
It’s Academic! turns to D.C.-based experts when needed.
“We pride ourselves on being right. We go to extraor-
dinary lengths to see that our questions are not only right,
but also not misleading,” says Lechner. “If one is, we won’t
use it. We go through a long period with each question with
experts,” especially in math and science. She says they are
especially lucky being able to tap national figures at iconic
institutions like the Smithsonian and the National Archives.
“This, for us, is an extraordinary resource.”
Although general knowledge questions that students learn
in school form the foundation for most competitions, some,
particularly those that are televised, also add sports, pop cul-
ture, and current event questions — something bemoaned on
various nontelevised quiz tournament blogs, where coaches,
players, and former players vigorously debate topics like
moderating etiquette (“Do not prompt answers!”) and the
best books to use as study guides.
But for Robertson, the “lighter” questions added another
dimension to the game.
“Participants tended to know the an-
swers to them, so that made for some fun
buzzer races,” he says. Besides, he adds,
“It was rarely the case that these questions
Take an
would determine the outcome of the game online quiz.
since there were so few of them.” Ed.
1. Tut (Tutankhamun) 2. Virginia Dare 3. Oliver Twist 4. Anne Frank
5. Felix Mendelssohn 6. Alexander “The Great” 7. Christopher Paolini 8. David
Harvard Graduate School of Education 31
all photos: Istockphoto.com
 By mary tamer

As the National School Lunch Program

changes gears to address staggering rates
of obesity in addition to hunger, how easy
will it be to wean today’s kids off of the
salty, fatty foods they’ve learned to love?

Harvard Graduate School of Education 33

 n August 2010, Newsweek reported that one in every
four children in the United States lives in a home that
“sometimes runs out of food,” a disturbing conse-
quence of rising unemployment and the country’s
economic downturn. Even in this land of plenty, “food
insecurity” — a lack of access to quality, nutritious
food — plagued more than 50 million Americans in
2009, the highest reported figure since the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) began tracking such
numbers in 1995. As health and medical writer Claudia
Kalb points out, Americans rarely starve to death, but hun-
ger — like quality food — always comes at a price.
An experienced teacher like Corinne Varon-Green,
C.A.S.’95, Ed.D.’04, from the Amigos School in Cambridge,
Mass., knows it when she sees it. Hungry kids can’t focus.
They’re grumpy and irritable. Stomachs and heads ache. On
a more profound level, underfed children under the age of
five face irreparable damage to their cognitive development,
and older children don’t fare much better. Brains and bodies
simply can’t grow as they should without the essential micro-
nutrients such as iodine, vitamin A, and iron typically found
in foods outside your grocer’s freezer section, assuming one
has easy access to a grocery store.
“We’ve had a couple of occasions when a child says, ‘I
have a horrible stomachache,’ and we find out they haven’t
had anything to eat,” says Varon-Green. “Kids who don’t
eat breakfast will have a stomachache by 10 a.m. and they
can’t function. I also see kids high on sugar, and they can’t
concentrate either. They’re jumpy and not attentive.”
Paradoxically, some of these children are also bigger than
they’ve ever been before.
“We are seeing obesity in children, diabetes in children;
things we used to only see in adults. These are chronic
diseases they will have for the rest of their lives,” says Juliana
Cohen, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of
Public Health who focuses on nutrition. “We also see, despite
poverty levels and sometimes barely being able to afford
food, these obese but malnourished populations. We are
bombarded by junk food everywhere we go, and while you
can go to a fast food establishment and get all the food you
need, your body is not getting what it really needs.”
The United States may indeed lag behind Asian and
European nations on math, reading, and science scores, yet
Americans remain at the top of the international heap when
it comes to weight and body mass index, a measurement of
body fat. According to Jean Daniel, public affairs director
for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, more than 60
percent of adults are considered overweight or obese, as are
one in three American children.
“We are leading the world in a way that we don’t want
to lead the world,” says Daniel. “The overweight and
34 Ed. • summer 2011
obesity rates of children have tripled over the past 20
years. It is an epidemic.”
It is for all these reasons and more that President
Barack Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids
Act of 2010 on December 13, 2010, a law that will not only
change the nutritional guidelines of the 65-year-old National
School Lunch Program, but will also provide the program’s
first noninflationary budget increase in more than three
decades; a total of $4.5 billion over 10 years, which includes
an additional 6 cents per meal, per child.
So what’s not to like?
In all, 157 members of Congress voted against the new
measure, citing everything from excessive spending to un-
necessary government interference in the lives of American
families. And, in a time of increasing costs and decreasing
revenues, some district leaders and food advocates worry
whether 6 cents will allow schools to serve healthier fare,
when the current federal reimbursement of $2.72 per free
meal already has many school programs running in the red.
Perhaps most important, some experts question whether
today’s kids — raised in a world filled with Happy Meals and
Ho Hos — will actually embrace more fruit, vegetables, and
farro, as promoted by the new legislation. What happens if
nutritionally challenged kids don’t eat better food, especially
if parents won’t make them?
“We need to recognize that this is a very complex
problem and it will need a variety of solutions,” says Andrea
Giancoli, a registered dietician and spokesperson for the
American Dietetic Association. “Having worked in school
nutrition policy for the last 10 years, it is not an easy fix to
just put healthy food out there. Often, when schools put the
healthy choices out there, the kids aren’t taking it. They need
to put out a product that the children will eat.”
A History of Hunger
As teachers and educational leaders will tell you, the
National School Lunch Program and the newer School
Breakfast Program, introduced in 1966, may provide
the only nutrition some school children receive each day.
Families living at or below 130 percent of poverty level
— or $28,665 for a family of four — are eligible for meals
at no charge, while those who live between 130 and 185
percent of the poverty level receive reduced price meals,
paying no more than 40 cents per lunch. In all, more than
31 million children across the country were fed through the
National School Lunch Program at a cost of $9.8 billion in
fiscal year 2009.
For David Kauffman, Ed.M.’98, Ed.D.’05, principal of
the Perez Elementary School in Austin, Texas, the program
is vital.
 What About Breakfast?
f 101,000 schools are providing 31
million low-income children with
lunch every day, why are only 11 mil-
lion children getting breakfast?
“There’s a disparity in the number
of schools that offer breakfast, and
it’s about 20,000 schools less,” says
Jean Daniel, public affairs director for
the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food
and Nutrition Service. “We have been
actively promoting that schools that offer
lunch should also offer breakfast, and those
numbers have steadily gone up over the past decade.” But, she
adds, “there are a number of hurdles still to expanding school
breakfast to those who need it.”
Among those hurdles are timing and transportation. For children
who ride a bus to school each day, being late can compromise the
chance to have a few bites of cereal or a bagel in the cafeteria. So
too can an early start: If breakfast begins at 6:30 a.m. and ends at
7 a.m., some students and their parents may opt out.
For the 11 million children who do take part, 9.1 million are
eligible for free and reduced-price breakfast, costing $2.9 bil-
lion in fiscal year 2009. For participating schools, the federal
reimbursement rates are $1.48 for free breakfast, $1.18 for
reduced-price, and 26 cents for paid.
“The School Breakfast Program is the most useful anti-obesity
tool in the school toolbox,” says Matt Sharp, senior advocate for
“Sleep and food are our two biggest challenges,” he says,
“and a hungry kindergartener is a force to be reckoned with.”
It is no surprise then that concerns surrounding poverty
and hunger in America paved the way to the creation of the
earliest school lunch programs, some of which date back to
the 1850s. The Children’s Aid Society of New York began to
provide meals to vocational students in 1853 and was soon
followed by other civic organizations that did the same in
Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Chicago,
among others.
As cited by the USDA, what likely brought this issue
to the fore was the 1904 publication of Poverty, a book by
Robert Hunter that detailed the catastrophic implications
of malnutrition on children. As Hunter wrote, “Learning
is difficult because hungry stomachs and languid bodies
and thin blood are not able to feed the brain. The lack of
learning among so many poor children is certainly due, to
an important extent, to this cause. … It is utter folly, from
the point of view of learning, to have a compulsory school
law which compels children, in that weak physical and
mental state which results from poverty, to drag themselves
to school and to sit at their desks, day in and day out, for
several years, learning little or nothing.”
By the early 1920s, Chicago and Los Angeles had wide-
spread school lunch programs, sponsored and paid for, in
part, by their boards of education. (In Los Angeles, poorer
the California Food Policy Advocates. “We are far more focused
on increasing participation in breakfast than lunch.”
Another hurdle is stigma. While children on free or reduced-price
lunch can often blend into a lunchroom where all students eat, the
same cannot be said for kids who arrive early for breakfast.
“Some students would rather not eat anything than have people
know they are eligible for free and reduced-price meals,” says Ju-
liana Cohen, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public
Health focused on nutrition. But they need to.
In School Breakfast in America’s Big Cities, a January 2011
report released by the Food Research and Action Center, 16 of the
29 urban districts examined in the study “performed above the
national average in reaching low-income students with breakfast.
But more than half failed to reach a majority of their low-income
students with the important morning nourishment they need to
succeed in school, and only two districts met FRAC’s goal of reach-
ing at least 70 low-income children with breakfast through the
School Breakfast Program for every 100 low-income children who
received lunch through the National School Lunch Program.”
As a result, some schools are starting to move breakfast from
the cafeteria to the classroom or providing a “grab-and-go” meal
for all students, regardless of income.
“It may take up classroom time, but more schools should do
it,” says Andrea Giancoli, spokesperson for the American Di-
etetic Association. “Nutrition is part of what is going to improve
our educational system. If we don’t accept that, were not going
to get anywhere.”
high school students sometimes had to work at the school
to help cover their lunch cost.) During the depression of the
1930s, with rampant unemployment, states and municipali-
ties around the nation formalized lunch programs via local
legislation. These programs were aided, on a year-to-year
basis, by the federal government as a way to dispense
unused and undervalued surplus from the nation’s farms,
which were also suffering.
By the 1940s, there was another major concern: Many young
men graduating or leaving high school were being rejected from
the World War II draft because they were malnourished.
“Food insecurity and the hunger crisis was much more
widespread and posed a serious threat to national security
and the economy,” says Matt Sharp, senior advocate for the
California Food Policy Advocates, a public policy organiza-
tion focused on antipoverty initiatives.
By the time the 79th Congress passed the National
School Lunch Act in 1946 to formalize, subsidize, and make
permanent a National School Lunch Program, 48 states —
the entire country, at that point — were already on board,
serving 6 million children in 42,000 schools. As President
Harry Truman said at the bill’s signing, “In the long view, no
nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous
than its farmers; and in the National School Lunch Act, the
Congress has contributed immeasurably both to the welfare
to our farmers and the health of our children.”
Harvard Graduate School of Education 35
 Other Options
hough the guide-
lines prescribed in
the Healthy, Hunger-
Free Kids Act don’t
go into effect until fall
2012, some school systems
around the country have already taken matters into their own
hands — including in some unconventional ways.
In the Austin independent School District in Texas, all lunch
menus in the city’s 124 K–12 schools have adopted the Weight
Watchers Points System. Taco salads (6 points) stand alongside tur-
key and mozzarella cheese melts (7 points) and zucchini sticks (0
points). At the Perez Elementary School, Principal David Kauffman,
Ed.M.’98, Ed.d.’05, says the change has mostly met with success.
“I think it is pretty consistent with how kids have always reacted
to school lunch,” he says. “There are some things they really like
and some things they don’t. They love the pizza and they’re not
concerned that it has low-fat cheese. They’re responding to the
choice of the day versus ‘This is healthy. I don’t want it.’”
KIPP SPARK Academy in Newark, N.J., gets their meals from
organic-based Revolution Foods. According to principal Joanna
Belcher, Ed.d.’08, her 200 elementary students are at the perfect
age to embrace both new foods and new habits. The addition of a
school vegetable garden also helps students make the farm-to-ta-
ble connection. And parents — key to any long-term success — are
regularly engaged in workshops on healthy cooking.
At Boston’s Codman Academy Charter Public School, started by
Meg Campbell, C.A.S.’97, only one option is served to students
and it’s healthy: low-fat, low-sodium, and whole grain. Lunch is free
for everyone, regardless of income eligibility, thanks to external
funding raised by administrators. On a recent visit, the high school,
which is surrounded by convenience stores and with a McDonald’s
across the street, offered vegetarian chili, steamed spinach, brown
rice, salad, an apple, and low-fat milk.
But the legislation was not without controversy. Some
members of Congress considered the proposed appropria-
tion of $75 million to be an unseemly expenditure for the
federal government and “destructive to the national mo-
rale,” according to a New York Times article from February
20, 1946.
“If you pass this bill,” said Representative Hattan Sumners,
a Democrat from Texas, “you will be inculcating in little chil-
dren at the most impressionable period of their lives the idea
that they can get something for nothing from Uncle Sam.”
Healthy and Hunger Free
Now 65 years later, Truman’s act provides daily lunch in
101,000 schools nationwide in urban, rural, and suburban
areas, and the program still faces opposition. Even with
mounting medical evidence that current high-fat, high-
sodium food choices must change, the upgrade of nutritional
36 Ed. • summer 2011
standards and the related $4.5 billion increase — which was
deducted from the federal food stamp program — still faced
a host of critics last year after Obama signed the bill. Some
argued that government had no business telling students what
to eat. Others worried that schools would have to raise the
price of lunch for those who do pay. Groups, like the National
Governors Association, objected to it as a barely funded
mandate. Advocates for the poor argued that money shouldn’t
be siphoned from one antipoverty program to another.
“While it may be a noble goal, at the end of the day, jobs
are far more important for us to focus on,” said Republican
Representative Bill Posey from Florida, after voting against
the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. “And I think it would be
a better idea to let America’s families choose what food they
want their children to eat.”
At Perez Elementary School, Kauffman knows that some
of the 890 students arrive hungry. On a daily basis, the
school serves 800 lunches to its K–5 children, 93 percent of
whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
“We’ve gone up a couple points in this recent economic
downturn, from 90 to 93 percent,” says Kauffman, who has
been principal at the school for five years, “and the vast ma-
jority of the meals are free. Roughly, one in 10 is reduced.”
Kauffman’s numbers reflect the national trend as well.
While National School Lunch Program participants have
remained fairly steady, USDA Spokesperson Daniel says they
have seen a 5 percent gain in families whose eligibility has
transitioned from reduced price to free.
When it comes to school breakfasts, Perez Elementary
serves as a microcosm again, serving 250 students — 550
fewer than at lunch. Nationwide, about 11 million students
partake in what is considered to be the most important meal
of the day, a dramatically lower figure than the 31 million
receiving free or reduced lunch. (See sidebar, page 35.)
The government hopes to change this. For starters, ac-
cording to the USDA website, the new Healthy, Hunger-Free
legislation will improve “the nutritional quality of all food in
schools by providing USDA with the authority to set nutrition-
al standards for all foods sold in schools, including in vending
machines, the ‘a la carte’ lunch lines, and school stores.” In
addition, available federal data, such as from Medicaid, will
be used to better identify eligible children before they fill out
an application, which is expected to increase participation by
approximately 115,000 students. In high-poverty communi-
ties, census data will be used to assess which schools should
have universal access to free and reduced-price lunch.
Translated to a school tray, children will be served food
they may not be used to — fresh fruits; green, leafy vegeta-
bles; and whole grains — but, as food and nutrition experts
say, it is time to move past the days of chicken pucks and taco
tubs to close the widening nutritional gap.
 “The problem we are having is our population is consum-
ing too many macronutrients with too many calories and not
enough nutrients in these calories,” says Giancoli, referring to
the abundance of fat and carbohydrates in the American diet.
“We’re overfed with macronutrients and underfed with micro-
nutrients. In school, a child’s ability to think and learn is being
compromised with the poor nutritional choices that are being
made. Still, I would say that most of the research that has
been done on kids who consume the school meal shows that
they have a better nutritional profile than those not receiving
the school meal. The school meal is often the scapegoat to the
problem, but that is not what is causing the obesity crisis.
“It’s tough,” Giancoli continues. “I don’t want to blame
parents or schools because we live in a much different society
today and it’s tough to make ends meet. When we talk about
poverty and you are trying to feed your children well and all
you have to spend is $5, it is very much a socioeconomic issue
and it’s very much an environmental issue.”
Says Daniel, “Hunger and obesity are two sides of a
similar coin.”
Dollars and Sense
So how far will 6 cents go? It depends on whom you ask.
At the current free lunch reimbursement rate of $2.72 per
meal, many school providers say it is tough, if not impossible,
to deliver healthy nutritious food while covering all other
food services costs, including staffing and equipment, while
staying within budget.
“There are very few good options in school nutrition,
and most schools serve their kids lousy food that is unap-
pealing,” says Bob Nardo, managing director of operations
for KIPP TEAM Charter Schools in Newark, N.J. “This
is a problem everywhere, but particularly in low-income
areas that are considered food deserts, where you can’t get
adequate, nutritious food nearby. For our kids at KIPP,
they are getting nearly half or two-thirds of their nutrition
at school, so our schools face a particularly heavy burden.
They need this food in order to learn. This is the context in
which we are operating.”
Other districts struggle as well to hold to their bottom line.
Chicago and New York City, for example, have multimillion-
dollar deficits in food services, attributable to escalating costs
and money owed from families who have not kept up with
either their full or reduced-priced payments.
“The other piece is efficiency. It is hard to realize how
much money schools lose on this business,” says Nardo. “I’ve
seen countless schools where tens of thousands of dollars can
be lost without putting two plus two together.”
Nardo says that was the case with KIPP in Newark, until
they outsourced the management to Revolution Foods (see
sidebar, page 36), a health-based school foods company
launched in California in 2006.
In fact, approximately 1,000 schools around the country
started piloting healthier nutritional guidelines even before
the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was signed, using their
existing budgets, says Daniel. Under the new legislation,
school districts will be encouraged to work together, and order
together on certain items, to “achieve economies of scale.”
“It will require being creative,” Daniel says.
That is exactly what Rebecca Mozaffarian, project man-
ager for the Harvard Prevention Research Center, set out to
do in her work with YMCA afterschool programs around
the country where they were charged with finding healthier
snack and drink alternatives to fit within the 76-cent per child
federal reimbursement for afterschool programs.
“We have found in these programs that they can get pretty
far with it, serving an apple and a cheese slice and water, or
carrots and hummus and water,” says Mozaffarian. “Our
goal isn’t so much about weight loss or about obesity; it is
about a healthy lifestyle. What children are exposed to when
they are young affects what they eat when they are older and
into adulthood. Having them exposed to as many healthy
options as possible during the day is essential to getting them
on track for healthy eating. There are a number of kids for
whom every meal they have … is outside the home, and
it’s critical that those foods that are being provided through
school systems are healthy.”
Back at the Amigos School in Cambridge, changes
are also under way thanks to a program with the city’s
Department of Public Health that sends nutritionists to the
school on a regular basis. Friday’s pizza now has whole wheat
crust. Bake sales are a thing of the past. And physical activity
happens for every student, every day.
But there is always progress to be made. Cheeseburgers are
still popular, and cafeteria workers report that the fresh fruit
they serve with meals is often found rolling under lunch tables.
And what happens at home is another matter. As one 9-year-
old student diner reported, her breakfast of Frosted Flakes
was preceded the night before by a dinner of chicken nuggets.
“Last year, every classroom had a basket of fresh fruit
brought in each day,” says Varon-Green, noting that this prac-
tice changed once the school’s low-income population dipped
below 40 percent. “Now, some parents will bring in snacks, so
there is a basis for a healthy snack every day, but I always have
extra bags of healthy chips just in case.
As teachers, if there is no provision, we
buy. We can’t see children go hungry.”
Watch a video of
— Mary Tamer is a frequent writer for Ed. Codman Academy’s
Her last piece looked at public service incentives creative ways to
eat healthy.
for teachers. Ed.
Harvard Graduate School of Education 37
lars skroder

oneonone Jen Holleran

F
or most, Facebook is a fun diversion, a way to reconnect and keep up with old friends. But, for Jen
Holleran, Ed.M.’95, the social network is a means to a much more serious enterprise. Last fall she
was tapped by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who studied at Harvard as an undergraduate,
to head Startup: Education, a nonprofit established to aid the public schools of Newark, N.J., a system in
dire need of reform.
With a background that includes teaching in independent schools, management consulting, and urban
school reform, Holleran — who also spent four years as executive director of Bay Area for New Leaders
for New Schools — jumped at the challenge. As acting director of the foundation, she is in charge of
allocating Zuckerberg’s $100 million grant and is working closely with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who,
as a condition of the gift, has been tasked with raising a matching sum to further benefit the schools.
“I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to make a difference for so many students,” she says.
briget ganske

“I think Newark and New Jersey have the leadership and the resources, and this is the moment to do
great things. I feel lucky to be part of that.”

38 Ed. • summer 2011

alumni news and notes
What are the goals of
Startup: Education?
Startup: Education
is interested in trying
new, bold things
instead of tinkering with what has been.
[We want to] start new school models,
give principals more autonomy to run
their schools, have the central office be
more responsive to schools instead of
vice versa, and —
perhaps most of all — find ways to
recognize teachers and school leaders
who are moving student achievement.
This is one of Mark’s real drivers to
get involved in education, to improve
schools for all kids.
What sparked this drive?
His girlfriend was a teacher for a while,
and he was surprised by how much less
attention their peers gave her than they
gave him and his technology startup.
Well, he was in Silicon Valley, and he
was starting Facebook. … But it made a
big impression on him in any case.
He thinks if we are going to get the
great people we need to run our schools
and give a high-quality education to all
kids, we need to shift the perception
and the rewards teachers get.
What’s first?
Our first goal as a foundation
is to dramatically improve
the schools in Newark, so
every student there gets a great
education. That, in and of
itself, is an enormous and
critical challenge to meet. If we can
do that, we will have at least part of
a model to replicate. We’ll need to be
very careful to evaluate what worked
and what didn’t in the process, and
then we could try to impact urban
education reform elsewhere. There are
many people working together to create
a model that works for kids — all kids,
not just some kids — [and] to scale
models that work to whole cities and
the nation.
Why Newark?
Mark really believes strongly in
leadership. He was very impressed with
Mayor Cory Booker and Governor
Chris Christie and their commitment
to transforming the schools in Newark.
They have a strong bipartisan partner-
ship in which they have put politics
aside to focus on results for students.
Mark wanted to back this bold ap-
proach that will provide every child
in Newark with great schools. He
was impressed they were committing
themselves to this critical work, and he
wanted to support them to help make
the work a success for kids.
How involved is Zuckerberg in day-to-
day operations?
Mark is very interested in the Newark
education reform work, but he is also
busy building a company on the other
side of the country. I communicate
with him regularly, but don’t see him
frequently.
And the Newark city
government?
Mayor Booker is
coordinating and
driving much of the
work in Newark, and
so we work relatively
closely with him as he and
the governor work with the community
to develop a plan for reform. Chris
Cerf, the commissioner of education, is
also central to the work in Newark.
Has your time with New Leaders for New
Schools helped your current work?
New Leaders allowed me to work with
extraordinary, dedicated people who
would stop at nothing to turn schools
into great places for the kids they
served. It was inspirational, and it was
an opportunity to learn more of what it
takes to prepare and support the kinds
of outstanding leaders our schools need
to ensure every child receives a great
education and achieves at high levels.
There has been some criticism of
Zuckerberg’s gift.
I have a pretty simple perspective on
this: We have a crisis in this country
because our schools are failing so
many of our kids and limiting their
potentials in a way that is devastating to
the kids themselves, their families, and
the country. It seems to me we need
everyone to bring whatever resources
they have to offer to step up and help
fix the problem, which is what Mark
Zuckerberg has chosen to do, and other
wealthy people are doing as well. We
need to solve this problem. Mark is
setting an example — taking a risk to
make a big difference — and I encour-
age others to follow with their talents,
time, or money.
How do you feel
about the media
attention?
We just try to keep
focused on the work.
Until we have significantly
improved the schools in
Newark, we haven’t
accomplished anything.
What will make the foundation
Istockphto.com
a success?
Having many, many more kids
get a great education — and
doing whatever it takes to allow
our schools and country to provide that
education — is what will make Startup:
Education a success. Anything we can
do to support that innovation and op-
portunity is our aim.
If Hollywood ever makes
The Social Network 2,
who would play you, and
would you cameo?
I wouldn’t mind
Sigourney Weaver. As for
a cameo, I may be too
camera shy for that!
— Marin Jorgensen
Harvard Graduate School of Education 39
 alumni news and notes

1981
1966 Michael Mele
Michael Kalafatas (left)

2010
Xavier Rozas and Elizabeth
(Hale) Rozas

1984
Julie Englund

2010
Jennifer Cottle
(fourth from left)

40 Ed. • summer 2011

1949
Timothy Dyas, M.A.T., was
recently elected to the USA
Track and Field Masters Hall
of Fame. He joins an exclusive
roster that includes National
Track and Field Hall of Famer
Bill Rodgers, a four-time win-
ner of both the Boston and New
York City marathons.
tions at the Australian Hervey
Bay Conference. Ivey is the
author of more than 40 books,
translated into 22 languages.
He is courtesy professor at the
University of South Florida,
Tampa, and distinguished
university professor (emeritus)
at the University of Massachu-
setts, Amherst.
1966
Michael Kalafatas,
M.A.T., retired as director
of admissions at Brandeis
University in 2002 and since
has published three books: The
Bellstone: The Greek Sponge Divers
of the Aegean, One American’s Jour-
ney Home (2003); Bird Strike: The
Crash of the Boston Electra, The
Story of Man and Bird in Conflict
(2010); and My Dog’s Name is
Einstein and Other College Essays
Written from the Hearts of Boys and
Girls (2010), coauthored with
Susan Simon. He also served
as executive producer of the
documentary film, Pushing the
Limits: The Story of Greek Sponge
Diving (2008).

1959
Allen Ivey, Ed.M.’57, Ed.D.,
is focusing on neuroscience
and counseling. Last year he
delivered the keynote addresses
for the Japanese Clinical Psy-
chological Association and the
Turkish Psychological Associa-
tion, and made nine presenta-
1963
Don Akenson, Ed.M.,
received an honorary degree
from Victoria University,
Wellington, New Zealand, for
his contributions to the study
of history in the country. He
is professor of Canadian and
colonial history at Queen’s
University in Canada.

courtesy of ben marcovitz

Surprise, Surprise: Ben Marcovitz

W
hen Ben Marcovitz, Ed.M.’06, was invited as a guest
on The Oprah Winfrey Show last September, he
thought it was simply to take a bow with a bunch of
other principals of exceptional charter schools. Even so, he was
excited and nervous to be recognized in front of millions of view-
ers for the accomplishments of the New Orleans Charter Science
and Math Academy, a high school he founded in 2007.
And then Oprah gave the principals the surprise of their lives.
“She said, ‘We’re going to give each of your schools …’ and
then uttered the word ‘one,’” Marcovitz says. “‘And in my head
I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, $100,000!’”
He couldn’t believe his ears when she announced a million-
dollar gift. He remembers his jaw dropping involuntarily, but not
much else.
“First there was a moment of complete shock,” he says. “Then
came an enormous wave of joy when we thought about all the
great things this meant our schools could do for our kids.”
When, 10 days later, the entire school and many community
members watched the broadcast in a local auditorium, the
response to Oprah’s announcement was deafening.
“The kids were screaming and experiencing something like
pride, but also something of a catharsis,” Marcovitz says. “They
had worked so hard for so long, and this was the first real exter-
nal acknowledgement that what they did was truly special.”
Sci Academy, as the school is nicknamed, is governed by
the belief that any child, no matter what age, can completely
transform the trajectory of his or her education and achieve the
highest possible goals.
“Whenever there’s a question about why we should do some-
thing, that’s what we look to. That principle streamlines our focus
and allows us to make choices with a sense of confidence and
surprising swiftness,” says Marcovitz.
He thinks of teaching in much the same way, with a highly
optimistic and developmentally aggressive approach he credits
to his experience at the Ed School.
“We always talked about teaching as a science that can con-
tinually be researched, improved upon, and often standardized
for success,” he says. “I believe anybody can learn to teach if they
are intelligent people who are willing to work hard at the craft.”
Marcovitz has hopes to create more schools like Sci Academy
in the future.
“After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a place where
education was incredibly vibrant and reform was in the air,” he
says. “I really thought that the window for extraordinary ambition
and change would have closed a few years ago, but it seems to
have only grown.”
— Mateo Corby

Harvard Graduate School of Education 41

 alumni news and notes

You are so cool.

Or at least you will
be if you’re carrying 1977
Michael Serino, Ed.M., is
around a free Ed executive director of human
capital development at Cornell
School cooler bag University, ILR School. Based
in New York City, he directs
this summer. Send executive education programs
that are customized for global
in a classnote with organizations focused on opti-
mizing their human capital to
your latest news and execute business strategy.
you’ll be entered in a drawing for the
learn about the traditional
Italian values that have helped
them maintain their culture
over the centuries. He married
Andy Holtzman last summer
on Cape Cod.
1982
Bonnie Dakin, Ed.M., teach-
es kindergarten/grade one at
University Hill Elementary in
Vancouver, B.C. She returns to

free bag. Include “classnotes raffle” in
the subject line. Deadline is July 25.
classnotes @ gse.harvard.edu
Eve Sullivan, M.A.T.,
founder of Parents Forum,
was named Arminta Jacobson
Parenting Education Profes-
sional of the Year by the Texas
Association of Parent Educa-
tors in March at the 19th An-
nual International Conference
on Parenting Education and
Parenting at the University of
North Texas, Denton.
1968
Amy Nathan, Ed.M., re-
cently had the second edition of
her book, The Young Musician’s
Survival Guide, published by
Oxford University Press.
1970
Patricia Hill Collins,
M.A.T., was the keynote
speaker at the Ed School’s
Alumni of Color Conference in
March. She is a professor at the
University of Maryland.
1971
John Gray, Ed.M., is profes-
sor of education and chair
of the faculty of education at
Cambridge University. He is
also vice-principal of Homer-
ton College and a fellow of the
British Academy. He recently
served as a special adviser to
the House of Commons Select
Committee Enquiry into
School Accountability.
1972
Ron Glass, Ed.M., has
been named director of the
new University of California
multicampus research pro-
gram initiative, the Center
for Collaborative Research
for an Equitable California.
He continues his studies as a
philosopher of education at the
University of California, Santa
Cruz, focusing on moral and
political issues and education as
a practice of freedom.
1976
Neen Hunt, M.A.T.’65,
Ed.D., will serve as academic
head of school for Oxbridge
Academy of the Palm Beaches
in Florida, a private high
school started by William Koch
of Koch Industries. The school
is slated to enroll its freshman
class of 75 in September.
1978
Marlene MacLeish,
Ed.M.’74, Ed.D., received an
honorary degree from the Uni-
versity of Western Ontario in
2010. She is professor of medi-
cal education at Morehouse
School of Medicine in Atlanta.
1980
Derick Brinkerhoff,
Ed.D., was inducted into the
National Academy of Public
Administration as a fellow in
November 2010.
Leonard Dowse, Ed.M.,
was elected treasurer of the
Society for the Protection of
New Hampshire Forests board
of trustees. He has served on
the board since 2007.
1981
Lida Hurst, Ed.M., was
named a certified fundraising
executive by CFRE Inter-
national. She serves as chief
development officer for Jef-
ferson Area Board for Aging in
Charlottesville, Va.
Michael Mele, Ed.M., is
the director of Il Chiostro,
Inc., and the Tuscan Renais-
sance Center in Tuscany, Italy.
The company organizes arts
and personal development
programs for adults who, while
continuing their education
in their fields of interest, also
the classroom every few years,
she writes, “for the sheer joy
and pleasure of working with
children.” She has also been a
faculty advisor and sessional
instructor at the University of
British Columbia.
1984
Julie Englund, Ed.D., rep-
resented Harvard University
at the inauguration of John
Garvey, the new president
at the Catholic University of
America, in January.
M ichael Sales, Ed.D.,
cofounded Art of the Future in
Newburyport, Mass., to sup-
port forward-looking leaders
who respect their organiza-
tions as living systems embed-
ded in nature.
1985
Rena Upitis, Ed.D., recently
published the book, Raising
a School: Foundations for School
Architecture. She is a found-
ing director of Wintergreen
Studios, a nonprofit wilder-
ness educational retreat center
(www.wintergreenstudios.com). She
connects her outreach work at
Wintergreen with her research
and teaching at Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada, where she is a profes-
sor of arts education.

42 Ed. • summer 2011

1986
Charlotte Agell, Ed.M.,
reports that her latest book,
The Accidental Adventures of India
McAllister, made the 2011 ALA
Rainbow List, which honors
works reflecting significant
GLBTQ experience for young
people from birth to age 18.
Ellen Reeves, Ed.M.,
was elected president of the
2010–2011 Harvard Alumni
Association.
1987
Dorice Wright, Ed.D., is a
senior fellow at Phelps Stokes.
In April, she presented a paper
at the New York State Politi-
cal Science Association. At the
22nd Annual Meeting of the
Society for the Advancement of
Socio-Economics in June, she
presented a paper and was a
discussant on Amitai Etzioni’s
From Empire to Community.
1989
Graham Ashworth, Ed.M.,
published his first book, The
Hymns of Philip Doddridge, in
2010. The book republishes
the corpus of Doddridge’s
18th-century hymns with
additional notes and appendices.
1990
A rchie Douglas, Ed.M., is
in his second year as principal
of Pacific Collegiate School
(PCS), a 12-year-old public
charter school for grades 7–12
in Santa Cruz, Calif. PCS has
received national recognition
for the high achievement of

The Impossible Dream:

Tamara Michel

H
er goal is simple: to help underserved students become
successful in school and college. Yet, to Tamara
Michel, Ed.M.’93, reaching that goal can sometimes
feel daunting.

courtesy of Tamara Michel

“Coming face to face with the overwhelming needs of low-
income and neglected communities of Chicago, as well as the
extreme disparities in education offered in those communities,
truly moved me to want to do something about it,” says Michel.
“Yes, the issues are complex and multilayered; yes, the needs
are great and overwhelming, but I feel strongly that I had to do
something, even if that something was only a drop in the bucket
in making things better.”
Her recent appointment as chief executive officer at Chicago’s
Umoja Student Development Corporation is certainly a start.
The goals of the nonprofit organization mirror Michel’s: to help
underserved students in local public high schools graduate and
achieve college and career success.
“Having grown up in Brooklyn, N.Y., in a low-income community
and being the product of the New York City public education,” she
says, “I know firsthand the struggles students in these communi-
ties deal with every day, as well as the barriers to their success.”
Currently in nine public schools serving more than 8,000
students, Umoja provides support to at-risk teens before, during,
and after school in the form of college and career counseling,
advising, leadership programs, mentoring, and restorative justice
programs. The services help students build the confidence and
resourcefulness needed to achieve their college and career goals.
“When you have no role models for success, and you are the
first one in your family to graduate from high school, success in
college seems like an impossible dream,” says Michel.
Thanks to Umoja, though, Michel believes that the dream can
be within reach. For instance, at Manley Career Academy — a
neighborhood high school which hosts several Umoja services —
the graduation rate has risen from 50 percent in 1988 to 75
percent in 2009. And incidents of serious disciplinary infractions
have decreased by nearly 50 percent since Umoja’s implementa-
tion of a comprehensive restorative justice program.
Michel credits both the Umoja staff and the staffs at the
schools in which they work for the high level of achievement.
“Our partnerships and collaborations with public high schools —
sharing best practices with them and contributing to the improve-
ment of school culture — all make it possible for the students we
serve to be successful,” she says.
Michel is enjoying her new position and plans to be at Umoja
for the foreseeable future.
“There is a great deal of need for the work that we provide. As long
as that need is there, I believe that I will continue to do what I do,”
she says. “This truly does not feel like work. It is an inspiration.”
— Marin Jorgensen

Harvard Graduate School of Education 43

 alumni news and notes

The Tipping Point: Chris Bennett

L
ucky for him, Chris Bennett, Ed.M.’05, did not have a
high school experience that was shaped by bullying.
“I was probably bullied as much as any 6-foot-3-inch,
120-pound high school student buried in a computer was,” he

courtesy of Chris bennett

says. “But, fortunately, I have not been involved in any severe
cases of bullying.”
Still, the subject was something he thought a lot about last
fall when several tragic cases of teen bullying were highlighted
in the media.
“It didn’t take long for me to connect the dots,” he says, “and
realize what I was working on could be adapted to give students
the ability to discreetly use text messaging and voicemails to
report incidents of bullying to counselors.”
What Bennett was working on was Callyo, a technology based
on the relatively new ability to program phone lines.
“One can now do virtually anything with phone numbers,
phone calls, and text messages with just a few lines of code,” he
says. In fact, he had already used the technology to develop the
Mobile Symptom Journal, a program — inspired by his fiancee’s
struggle with the spinal condition ankylosing spondylitis — that
allows patients to text in how they are feeling, creating a log that
is easily accessible by their doctors.
Since text messaging is the preferred method of communica-
tion for many teens, Bennett had a hunch Callyo could translate
to a school setting.
Eliminating the awkwardness of an in-person visit to the coun-
selor’s office could erase the hesitancy that many teens feel
about reporting harrassment by their peers, Bennett says. A tip
line also would provide the means by which school officials could
learn of problems early on, making them more able to address
situations before they escalate. Tips are anonymous by design,
but, Bennett points out, “there is always a way to identify the
student if law enforcement needs to get involved.”
The current challenge for Callyo is building awareness and
getting it into as many schools as possible across the nation.
To that end, the bullying tip line has been presented to the U.S.
Department of Education’s Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy
secretary for safe and drug-free schools. And Bennett recently
met with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Canada’s Minister of National Defence, Peter McKay, to
share the technology. This year, Callyo will be marketed to 5,000
schools in 50 states.
Callyo is also being used by private companies to curb harass-
ment and discrimination and by law enforcement agencies to
collect tips from citizens in their communities.
“Whether we’re helping victims of bullying take the first step by
connecting with a counselor or aiding law enforcement put away
criminals abusing children,” says Bennett, “I believe Callyo will
have a strong future putting important technology in the hands
of local schools and police departments everywhere.”
— Marin Jorgensen

its students and is one of the tion to serve as the regional cluding the Washington Jesuit Light Studios in January 2011.
highest-performing public administrator of the New Academy in Washington, D.C. She lives in New York City.
high schools in the greater England region. He will over-
Bay Area. see operations in Connecticut, Joseph O’K eefe, Ed.M.’88,

Marina McCarthy,
Ed.M.’86, Ed.D., was ap-
pointed chair of the Presiden-
tial Scholars Commission by
President Barack Obama. The
commission is charged with
recognizing future leaders
and honoring them for their
achievements.
Robert Zarnetske, Ed.M.,
was appointed by the U.S.
General Services Administra-
Rhode Island, Massachusetts,
Vermont, New Hampshire, and
Maine. Areas covered include
federal real estate and informa-
tion technology.
1991
Joe McCarthy, Ed.M.’90,
Ed.D., retired as senior associ-
ate dean at the Harvard Ken-
nedy School. He is currently
serving on several boards, in-
Ed.D., was named the 27th
president of Saint Joseph’s
University in Philadelphia. He
took office in May 2011. He
had been dean of the Lynch
School of Education at Boston
College since 2005.
1992
Erika Dreifus, Ed.M.,
published her collection, Quiet
Americans: Stories, with Last-
1993
Tamara Michel, Ed.M., was
named CEO of Umoja Student
Development Corporation, a
nonprofit education organiza-
tion that has dramatically
improved college-going rates in
Chicago high schools serving
low-income communities. (See
profile on page 43.)

44 Ed. • summer 2011

1

2 2

3a 3b

Alumni Events 3c
1 Alumni Council members gathered with local
alumni at an all-alumni reception in Cambridge.
October 2010

Members of the Charles William Eliot Society

2 enjoyed brunch with Professor Fernando
Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’88, in Washington, D.C.
February 2011

Alumni and students attended the ninth annual

3 Alumni of Color Conference (AOCC) in Cambridge.
March 2011. Pictured 3a: AOCC Alumni Achieve-
ment Award Honorees: (L–r) Patricia Hill Collins,
M.A.T.’70; Gabriel Cámara, Ed.D.’72; and Charlene
Désir, Ed.D.’06. Pictured 3b: AOCC Chairs: (L–r)
Christina Dobbs, Ed.M.’06, Ed.D. expected 2013;
Anita Wadhwa, Ed.M.’09, Ed.D. expected 2012; and
Rosario Martínez, Ed.M.’11. 3c: Alumni reconnect-
ing at the conference.

Harvard Graduate School of Education 45

 alumni news and notes
1994
Gus Frias, Ed.M., was
selected by the Community
Action Commission of Santa
Barbara County as Task Force
Coordinator. In his post, he
will tackle the problem of youth
gangs on the Santa Barbara
south coast.
Bina Shah, Ed.M., launched
her sixth book, Slum Child — the
story of a Punjabi Christian girl
growing up in one of Karachi’s
poorest quarters — at the 2011
Karachi Literature Festival,
where she was also a speaker.
1995
Valerie Landau, C.A.S.,
is exploring interactive data
visualization in an outcomes-
based e-portfolio. The third
edition of her book, The
Engelbart Hypothesis: Dialogs with
Douglas Engelbart, is about to be
published.
1996
Shawn Kelly, Ed.M., is
headmaster at the McClel-
land School in Pueblo, Colo., a
preK–8 independent school.
Bob Muldoon, Ed.M., has
published Brass Bonanza Plays
Again: How Hockey’s Strangest
Goon Brought Back Mark Twain
and a Dead Team — and Made A
City Believe. The novel, based on
his work with the late, lamented
Hartford Whalers hockey
team, contains a chapter titled
“The Teacher,” which draws
on his brief, “disastrous” career
as a math teacher.
1997
Meg Engelmann, Ed.M.,
recently received her postgrad-
uate certification as a specialist
teacher for dyslexia. It was a
46 Ed. • summer 2011
Your facebook page is full of photos.
Why not send one our way?
Send us a high-resolution photo of yourself or your family,
including context, and we just might publish it in the next issue.
classnotes @ gse.harvard.edu
new experience in distance
learning via Moodle; she is
based in Munich, Germany
and the course was run out
of the University of York in
England. In January, she began
teaching primary school after
many years in the freelance
EFL/business English sector.
Alecia Humphrey, Ed.M.,
was inducted into the Uni-
versity of Michigan athletic
department’s Hall of Honor for
swimming. She currently is the
director of guardian ad litem for
the Minors Program at Chicago
Volunteer Legal Services.
1998
Brian Buckley, Ed.M., and
his wife Kate Hunter recently
opened a poetry bookstore in
Boulder, Colo., called Innisfree
Poetry Bookstore & Cafe. It is
one of only three poetry-exclu-
sive bookstores in the United
States.
Edith Fernández, Ed.M., is
the director of the Student De-
velopment Center, including the
Women’s Resource Center, at
the University of Texas, El Paso.
Maisi Pearson Julian,
Ed.M., left teaching and
combined her two passions,
kids and photography, into a
children’s photography busi-
ness in Alexandria, Va. She is
especially interested in photo-
graphing children with special
needs, who might not be able
to have their portraits taken
in a traditional studio setting.
www.maisijulianphotography.com.
1999
Eric Cummings, Ed.M., is
associate dean of the School of
Education and Public Service
at Cumberland University in
Lebanon, Tenn.
2001
Johnathan Landman,
Ed.D., was appointed superin-
tendent of schools for Hopkin-
ton, Mass. Previously, he was
superintendent for teaching and
learning in Randolph, Mass.
2002
Claudia Carroll, Ed.M.,
is currently teaching Remem-
brance Writing 101 workshops
to older adults in Marin
County, Calif.
Mishaela Duran, Ed.M.,
was named interim executive
director at the National Parent
Teacher Association.
David Greene,
Ed.M.’91, Ed.M.’94,
Ed.D., was promoted
to executive vice presi-
dent at the University
of Chicago.
hosted by the Alumni Council.
2003
Naomi Greenfield,
Ed.M., has been
producing educational
films, websites, games,
iPhone/iPad apps,
museum kiosks, and www.gse.harvard.edu/alumni_friends
more for FableVision
since 2006.
2004
Devon Elyse Tutak, Ed.M.,
recently joined the Corpora-
tion of Public Brodcasting as a
project manager for Ready to
Learn. Her last position was
associate director of PBS Kids
Marketing Strategy at PBS
headquarters in Arlington, Va.
Kimberly Truong, Ed.M.,
received the Recognition of
Merit award in the 2010–2011
PDK International Outstand-
ing Doctoral Dissertation
Award program for “Racism
and Racial Trauma in Doctoral
Study: How Students of Color
Experience and Negotiate the
Political Complexities of Racist
Encounters.”
2005
Susana Claro, Ed.M.,
is the cofounder of Enseña
Chile (Teach Chile), which is
affiliated with Teach For All.
Save the Date
Please save the date for
an HGSE Alumni Reception
The evening of
9./22./11
Cambridge, Mass.
Visit
for more information.
Teach For All was launched in
2007 to help start Teach For
America–inspired programs.
Chile is the first Latin Ameri-
can country to be a member of
Teach For All.
2006
Andres Alonso, Ed.M.’99,
Ed.D., returned to the Ed
School in March to take part
in a session of the EPMSA
Speaker Series. He is CEO of
Baltimore Public Schools.
Michael Burke, Ed.M.,
was named registrar for the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences at
Harvard University. Previously,
he was director of admissions
and registrar at the Harvard
Kennedy School.
Marina Lee, Ed.M., returned
to the Boston area after almost
four years in Seoul, Korea, de-
veloping Noumena Education
Initiative, a private afterschool
program serving Korean
nationals. She recently married
Seth Leighton, Ed.M.
which, in March, sponsored the
MoreJazz Gala. The event will
help fund future scholarships
for Morehouse students, as
well as the alumni association’s
other philanthropic endeavors.
Molly Shaw, Ed.M., was
named executive director of
Communities In Schools of
Charlotte-Mecklenburg [N.C.].
The group focuses on dropout
prevention, helping young
people stay in school, success-
fully learn, and prepare for life
by connecting needed commu-
nity resources with schools.
2010
Jennifer Cottle, Ed.M.,
spent last New Years with
friends in Peru visiting Sac-
sayhuaman Fortress, ruins of
Moray, and Macchu Pichu,
among other sites. Joining her
on the trip was Brigham
Hall, Ed.M., and Jeff Lay-
ton, Ed.M.
Xavier Rozas, Ed.M.,
married current doctoral candi-
date Elizabeth (Hale) Rozas on
August 7, 2010 at the Comman-
dant’s House in the Charlestown
Navy Yard in Boston.

2007
Claudia Asano, Ed.M., is
engaged to Brendon Barcomb.
The couple plans to wed in
June of this year.
2008
William Hayes, Ed.M.,
is president of the Boston-
area chapter of the Morehouse
College Alumni Association,
2009
Heidi Cook, Ed.M., will
become principal of the Driscoll
School in Brookline, Mass. in July.

In Memory
Marie Estelle McCabe, M.A.T.’44
Gilbert Edson, M.A.T.’46
Donald Shaw, GSE’46
Robert Euth Markarian, Ed.M.’48
James Amsler, Ed.M.’50
James Merritt, Ed.M.’47, Ed.D.’51
Gertrude Grady, Ed.M.’52
Mary Ward Sullivan, Ed.M.’52
Diane Carleton Tait, M.A.T.’53
Joyce Nower, M.A.T.’54
Sheila Wharton Wasserman, M.A.T.’55
Elizabeth Gill, Ed.M.’58
James Naseeb Sabbagh, M.A.T.’59
Edward Leonard, GSE’60
Raymond Thompson, Ed.M.’60
Ann Venable, M.A.T.’60
James Edward Devlin, M.A.T.’61
Bertrand Needham Honea Jr., Ed.M.’61
Anne Horton Ridley, M.A.T.’61
Thomas Richard Hasenpflug, M.A.T.’57,
C.A.S.’61, Ed.D.’63
William Roberts, M.A.T.’64
Eleanor Lewis, Ed.M.’66
John Katz, Ed.D.’67
Charles Nugent, C.A.S.’67
Eileen O’Gorman, Ed.M.’67
Paul Coste, Ed.M.’56, C.A.S.’68
Joseph Sander Lukinsky, Ed.D.’68
Alan Bodine, GSE’69
John Anthony De Silva, Ed.D.’69
Glenn Whitmore, M.A.T.’73
J. Manford Barber III, Ed.M.’74
Dorothy Uhlig-Green, Ed.M.’71, Ed.D.’74
Leslie Hyman, Ed.M.’75
Phyllis Mayo, Ed.M.’75
Ann Gist Levin, Ed.M.’76
Mona Abrams, Ed.M.’81
Lloyd McElaney, Ed.M.’81
William Stevenson, C.A.S.’77, Ed.M.’82
Donald Phillips Jr., Ed.M.’76, Ed.D.’84
Roberta Sykes, Ed.M.’81, Ed.D.’84
Kathleen Cloud, Ed.D.’86
Barbara Curry, Ed.M.’87, Ed.D.’88
Jill Taylor, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’89
Elizabeth Corrigan, GSE’92
John Baldwin, Ed.M.’97, C.A.S.’02
Barbara Alexander Pan,
1950–2011
“She brought out the best in others,”
read one comment posted on the Ed
School website after Barbara Alexander
Pan passed away. “Let us all be your
legacy,” read another. Alexander Pan,
a former lecturer and researcher at the
Ed School who studied language and
literacy development, died in February
after battling a lengthy illness. She had
retired in 2009 after 23 years at the
school. The year before retirement, she
was presented with the Morningstar
Family Teaching Award, which cel-
ebrates a faculty member’s dedication
to his or her students. Alexander Pan
modestly accepted the award, saying,
“Teaching is truly a co-construction
activity, so this
award is as much
a reflection on my
students as it is Learn more,
leave a comment.
on myself.”
 recess
A Room With a View … and a Door that Shuts!
Phil Lee really needed it. With the deadline for a journal
article fast approaching, the Ed.D. student had to quickly
review some books in the Gutman Library to expand on the
article’s theory section. But there was a dilemma.
A 25-pound-dilemma.
That day, Lee was taking care of his two-year-old son, P.J.
Although Lee had taken him to the library many times in the
past, it was never easy.
“He would quickly get restless because there wasn’t much
for him to do in Gutman while I worked,” Lee says.
That changed recently when the school opened a new
parents’ room on the library’s second floor. The small room,
complete with two workstations, a beanbag chair, kids’ books,
and, perhaps most important, a door that shuts, gives stu-
dents a place on campus to study with their children in tow.
The idea for the room came about in the fall of 2009
when the Office of Student Affairs held a meeting for par-
ent students. Ed.D. student Erica Litke says a lot of com-
mon concerns came up, many focused on the difficulty of
balancing school and parenting. Someone mentioned how
great it would be to have a dedicated place on campus to go
with children.
“This resonated with me,” says Litke, who had a
15-month-old at the time. “I was finding that there were
times on Fridays when I needed to come to campus with my
son, whether to print something, meet with someone briefly,
or get other work done.”
48 Ed. • summer 2011
jill anderson
Phil and P.J.
A few months later, Dean Kathleen McCartney held a tea
that allowed students to meet with her in small groups. While
there, Litke pitched the idea for the parent room.
“The dean said that while a drop-off room wasn’t feasible,
she thought the idea of a room for parents to supervise their
own kids while getting work done was an easy one to imple-
ment,” Litke says.
And for the most part, it was. McCartney contacted John
Collins, the director of the library, to see if he had space,
which is always at a premium. Collins loved the idea —
“There isn’t a downside,” he says — and repurposed a small
office on the second floor with a fresh coat of paint, outlet
covers, and picture books. Children’s furniture and posters
from the American Library Association were later added.
Ed.D. student Clara Barata has used the room several
times. Although she doesn’t have children of her own, she
provides emergency childcare for classmates.
“In the past, I would look for space anywhere I could,”
she says, which often meant an empty hallway. Now she uses
the parents’ room.
McCartney says it’s important to be responsive when
students have great ideas, especially when there’s a real need.
“Universities need to support students with young chil-
dren,” she says. “If anyone should be able to figure out how
best to do that, it should be a school of education.”
— Lory Hough
investing
Once and Again
E
very year, for nearly five decades, Evelyn Murrin,
Ed.M.’58, has written a check to the HGSE Fund. Since
Frank Fritts, Ed.M.’02, graduated, he has similarly made
a contribution every year.
What motivates consecutive-year donors like these to remain
so loyal to the Ed School?
The answer for Murrin comes from the impact of research she
saw over the course of her career as a Pittsburgh-area school
counselor. For example, whereas diagnosis for autism in the
1950s was completely dependent on extended observation,
now, new technologies help explain which parts of the brain are
governing children’s actions.
“We can never afford to be static in research,” Murrin says.
“To support the sort of work the Ed School is doing, we all really
do need to contribute.”
For Fritts, who teaches history at Trinity-Pawling School in
upstate New York and helps run Camp Arcadia in Maine each
summer, the motivation to contribute each year is born of the
strong relationships he developed at the Ed School.
“I had equally amazing experiences inside and outside of
class,” Fritts says, noting that he remains in touch with class-
mates. “Gifts allow that to happen.”
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nie
Da
Continuous support from alumni donors at all levels is es-
sential to the success of the school and to its mission to develop
leaders and knowledge that will improve education, explains
Denise Tioseco, Ed.M.’02, director of alumni relations and the
HGSE Fund.
“Sometimes there’s a perception that only major gifts matter
to HGSE, but that’s not the case,” Tioseco says. “We deeply val-
ue participation with the HGSE Fund, regardless of the amount.”
To encourage alumni to become sustaining donors, Tioseco
created the Holmes Society, which is named for the first and
longest-serving dean of the Ed School, Henry Wyman Holmes.
Born in 1880, Holmes served as dean for two decades, from
1920 until 1940. The society recognizes consistent donors
to the HGSE Fund at all contribution levels. In addition, those
who have donated for five and 10 consecutive years are given
annual certificates.
For Fritts, a Holmes Society member, the spirit of this sort of
acknowledgement resonates with how he feels about giving.
“My philosophy is if you can give a lot, great,” he says. “But if
not, give what you can.”
— Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08
Harvard Graduate School of Education 49
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Young im Yoo
Clockwise from top left:
Rose, daughter of Lara
Landrum, Ed.M.’05; Sumin,
daughter of Young Im Yoo,
Ed.M.’02; and Lilliana,
daughter of Lecturer Mandy
Lara Landrum

Savitz-Romer and Toby

Romer, Ed.M.’01.

Where’s Ed.?
It’s never too early to start reading Ed. or be in
the magazine. Email us a picture of yourself (or
someone in your family) reading Ed. and you may
find yourself on the back cover, too.
mandy saviitz-Romer

classnotes@gse.harvard.edu