Education Task Force: New York Forum Panelist Biographies
Panelist Bios for New York
Geoffrey Canada
President and CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone
Geoffrey Canada is the President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) in New York City. Canada received the first Heinz Award in 1994 for his HCZ work, which demonstrates his passionate concern for children and his selfless determination to make their lives safer and saner. He is also the acclaimed author of Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America and Reaching Up for Manhood.
Canada, who grew up in the South Bronx, has dedicated his life to helping children who grew up in conditions similar to those faced by his family secure both educational and economic opportunities. Prominent among his many efforts are the HCZ's Beacon School, Harlem Peacemakers Program, and Community Pride Initiative. The Beacon School program provides support 12 hours per day, 365 days per year to children and families in Central Harlem. HCZ works with all of the children and families in a 23-block area in Central Harlem.
Canada holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and a master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before joining HCZ, he served as Director of the Robert White School, a private day school for troubled inner-city youth in Boston, and as the Program Director for the Truancy Prevention Program in New York City. Canada is also the East Coast Regional Coordinator for the Black Community Crusade for Children, a nationwide effort to make saving Black children the number one priority in the Black community. He has won numerous awards, including: the Robin Hood Foundation's Heroes of the Year Award, the Spirit of the City Award from the Cathedral of St. Johns the Divine, Bowdoin College's Common Good Award and New York University's Brennan Legacy Award.
Cecilia Cunningham
Executive Director, Middle College National Consortium at LaGuardia Community College
Dr. Cecilia Cunningham is the Executive Director of the Middle College National Consortium at LaGuardia Community College. As the Director of the Middle College National Consortium’s Early College Initiative, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Kellogg Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation, she is responsible for starting 18 new middle college-early college high schools and redesigning 12 existing middle college high schools to become middle college-early college high schools. She is the recipient of the 2004 Harold W. McGraw Jr., Prize in Education Award.
Before taking on this role, she served as the Principal of Middle College High School at LaGuardia Community College for 22 years until 2002. She is the co-founder of two other middle college high schools on LaGuardia’s Campus: The International High School and Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Secondary School for Art and Technology. In 1993, she founded the National Consortium of Middle College High Schools, a network of more than 25 middle college high schools that academically engage traditionally under-served students and are located on college campuses.
Cunningham started her career as a math teacher and holds a doctorate in education from Teachers College at Columbia University. She has done professional development for new principals in New York City for 13 years and was the founder of the Bank Street Principal’s Institute.
Gerry House
President and CEO, Institute for Student Achievement
Dr. N. Gerry House became President and CEO of the Institute for Student Achievement in April 2000, after serving as a school superintendent for 15 years in Memphis, TN and Chapel Hill, NC. She also has served as a teacher, junior- and senior-high-school guidance counselor, principal and assistant superintendent. House also serves on many national boards, including chair of the Board of Directors of the Educational Testing Service; New American Schools Board of Directors; The Wallace Foundation Education Leadership Advisory Committee; Board of Judges for the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education; Advisory Committee of the Harvard Change Leadership Group; AutoZone Board of Directors; Woodrow Wilson Foundation Board of Directors; member of Visiting Committee for the Harvard Graduate School of Education; National Advisory Board for National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE); and The New Teacher Project Board of Directors.
House was chosen to be the first recipient of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education Alumni Leadership Award in 2000. She has also received the following additional awards and recognition: AASA National Superintendent of the Year (1999); The Harold J. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education Award (1999); Tennessee Superintendent of the Year (1998); The Council of the Great City Schools' Richard R. Green Award (1998); the Tennessee Education Association Presidential Merit Award; Communicator of the Year by the Memphis Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America; "Simply the Best" Chief Executive Officer by the Memphis Black Business Directory, April of 1995; twice named the Executive Educator Magazine's Top 100 Executive Educators in education; and the Phi Delta Kappa Leadership Award.
She graduated from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro with a degree in English education, and she holds a Master of Science degree in counseling from Southern Illinois University. House earned her doctorate in education administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
David Levin
Superintendent, KIPP Academy
David Levin co-founded the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in 1994 and currently serves as the Superintendent of KIPP Academy, a public middle school in the South Bronx. KIPP has grown from a program serving 45 students in Houston to operating two schools that serve over 700 students in the South Bronx and in Houston. Since 1997, the KIPP Academy Charter School has been the highest performing public middle school in the Bronx, as measured by standardized test scores in reading and math, improvement in test scores, and attendance. KIPP now ranks in the top ten percent of all New York City public schools. In the spring of 1999, KIPP was named one of the 25 most effective schools in the nation in low-income communities. Of these 25 schools, David was selected as one of the seven most effective principals.
Hoping to replicate KIPP’s success nationwide, Levin co-founded KIPP: National in 2000, with Mike Feinberg and with the support of Gap, Inc. founders Don and Doris Fisher. KIPP: National consists of the KIPP Leadership Program and KIPP Schools. The KIPP School Leadership Program recruits and trains new KIPP principals, and KIPP Schools is a family of new and existing schools that share KIPP’s guiding principles and focus on student achievement. To date, 38 KIPP schools have been founded throughout the United States. In July 2005, KIPP will open three additional middle schools in New York City. Additionally, Levin co-authored KIPP Math, a comprehensive fifth- through eighth-grade math curriculum that culminates in students completing a two-year high-school Algebra I course by the end of eighth grade.
Before founding KIPP, Levin taught for three years in Houston through the Teach For America program. During that time, Levin received Teacher of the Year honors from his school, earned an outstanding teaching award from Teach For America and won the Jefferson Award for outstanding community service for the city of Houston. Levin is a Yale graduate and a native of New York.
Arthur E. Levine
President, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Arthur Levine is President and Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He received his bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to joining Teachers College, he served as Chair of the Higher Education program and Chair of the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Levine is the author of dozens of articles and reviews. His most recent book is When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student (with Jeanette S. Cureton), published in 1998. Among other volumes are Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College; Higher Learning in America; Shaping Higher Education's Future; When Dreams and Heroes Died: A Portrait of Today's College Students; Handbook on Undergraduate Curriculum; Quest for Common Learning (with Ernest Boyer); Opportunity in Adversity (with Janice Green), and Why Innovation Fails.
A 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship winner, Levine's other awards include a 1998 listing in Change magazine as "One of The Most Outstanding Leaders in the Academic Community," the 1996 Council of Independent Colleges’ Academic Leadership Award, the American Council on Education's "Book of the Year" award in 1974 (for Reform of Undergraduate Education), the Educational Press Association's annual award for writing in 1981, 1989, and 1993. He has served as consultant to more than 250 colleges and universities, and currently sits on the Boards of Blackboard, Inc., and the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities. Levine was also President of Bradford College (1982-1989) and named 1999-2001 Carnegie Fellow. He is a former Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation and Carnegie Council for Policy Studies in Higher Education (1975-1982).
Norma Morales
Principal, Bronx International High School
Norma Morales is the principal and one of the founding members of Bronx International High School, which opened in September 2001 with the sole purpose of serving newly arrived immigrants. Morales joined the school as a social worker and held that position for three years prior to becoming principal in September. Morales believes that a new principal’s ability to transition into a formidable leadership role is determined by the caliber and support of the school’s staff. She acknowledges that she has been privileged to work alongside bright and dedicated teachers, who have made Bronx International High School successful. Before arriving at Bronx International High School, Morales was a social worker at Legacy High School and Brooklyn International High School. Morales earned her undergraduate degree from Fordham University, received her master’s degree from Colombia's School of Social Work in 1997 and completed a master's degree in educational administration from Bank Street College's Principal's Institute in 2003.
Douglas Wood
Executive Director, National Academy for Excellent Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Douglas E. Wood was appointed Executive Director of the National Academy for Excellent Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University on August 1, 2004. The mission of the academy is to establish a new national model of effective professional development for high-school teachers that significantly and measurably improves the achievement of under-performing and under-served students. Wood is the former Executive Director of the Tennessee State Board of Education. In that role, he focused on reading, early childhood education, and teaching quality. Under his leadership, the board adopted new content and performance standards across all subject areas; changed teacher licensure standards to focus on reading; adopted new standards for reading specialists; changed the Basic Education Program to address the needs of English Language Learners; adopted a new professional development policy for administrators; and worked closely with the Tennessee Board of Regents on developing one of the nation’s first online programs for alternative licensure, mentoring, and additional endorsements for teachers. Wood also fought tirelessly to have early childhood education as part of the enabling legislation in the Tennessee lottery. Wood also helped draft the Tennessee Reading Excellence Grant. The $28.6 million reading grant is the largest competitive education grant in Tennessee history focusing on providing additional resources directly to schools for reading improvement.
Wood began his career as a social studies and history teacher in South Carolina’s public schools. He also served as a writer and chief reviewer of the U.S. Department of Education’s Technology Innovation Challenge Grants program. He helped craft South Carolina’s $21 million Integrated State Technology Plan.
Wood is the recipient of the Presidential Merit Award from the Tennessee Education Association, the Distinguished Service Award from the Tennessee Congress of Parents and Teachers, the South Carolina Technology Educator of the Year award, and Harvard University’s Thayer Prize. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Wofford College, holds a master’s degree in English from Middlebury College and also holds a master’s and doctoral degree in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.