BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Mónica Byrne-Jiménez, Board President, is Assistant Professor, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, Research and Evaluation Consultant, School Turnaround, Rensselaerville, NY, and Co-Director of the Advanced Leadership Development Series at Bank Street College in New York City. She previously served as Assistant Professor and Chair of the Graduate College of Education Faculty Senate, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA; Evaluation Consultant, Grand Circle Foundation, Boston, MA; Literacy Training Consultant, School Turnaround, Rensselaerville, NY; Associate Director, Accelerated Schools Center, New York City, NY; Literacy Instructional Specialist, New York City Public Schools, Bronx, NY; Bilingual Reading Teacher, Bronx, NY; Coordinator, Evening Even Start Program, Project Reach Youth, Brooklyn, NY; Supervisor, Farragut Learning Center, and Project Reach Youth, Brooklyn, NY. B.A., M.A., Ed.D.
Carol Choye is Director of District Leadership at the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education in New York City and serves as a mentor for superintendents for the New Jersey Department of Education and New Jersey Association of School Administrators. Dr. Choye previously served as Superintendent of Scotch Plains-Fanwood Schools in New Jersey; Superintendent, Princeton Regional Schools in New Jersey; Associate Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District in California; Instructor, San Francisco State University; Coordinator of Curriculum for the San Francisco Schools; Superintendent for Area I, San Francisco Unified School District; Principal, Assistant Principal and Teacher at the San Francisco Unified School District. Her community involvements include Board of Directors, American Association of School Administrators; Steering Committee of Global/International Education; Board of Trustees, Chinese for Affirmative Action; Board of Trustees, Educational Records Bureau; McGraw Hill Blue Ribbon Panel of Educational Leaders; Advisory Board, National Association for Secondary School Principals; Board of Trustees, National Faculty; Council of Advisors on Education to the Clinton-Gore Education Transition Team; Board of Directors, Princeton Public Library; Member, Intergovernmental Drug Control Commission; Board of Directors, The Rotary Club of Princeton; Chairperson, Rotary Foundation; Chairperson, Chinatown (San Francisco) YWCA; and Board of Trustees, San Francisco YWCA. B.A., Ph.D.
Paula Cordeiro is the Dean of the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES) at the University of San Diego. Previously Dr. Cordeiro was the Coordinator of the masters and doctoral programs in Educational Leadership at The University of Connecticut. Dr. Cordeiro is a former teacher, principal and school head in international schools in Venezuela and Spain. In 2007 Dr. Cordeiro was appointed to the board of The James Irvine Foundation in San Francisco and also serves on the Education Advisory Board of the Stuart Foundation. In 2009 she was elected to the board of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE). Dr. Cordeiro is a past president of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), and in 1998 was awarded a fellowship by the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management (FCCEAM). She is a former member of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, past President of the San Diego Council on Literacy, a founding member of the Academy of International School Heads, and a board member of the International Council for the Education of Teachers (ICET), and San Diego Grantmakers. In addition to numerous articles, Dr. Cordeiro has published three books and is currently working on the fifth edition of her co-authored text (with William G. Cunningham): An Introduction to Educational Leadership: A Bridge to Improved Practice. B.S., M.Ed., Ed.D.
Donald B. Gratz, Board Secretary, is Director of Graduate Programs in Education at Curry College in Milton, MA. Dr. Gratz previously served as the Executive Director of The Alliance for Education in Worcester, MA; Coordinator of National School Reform, Community Training and Assistance Center; Dean of Continuing Education, Quincy Junior College; Executive Director, Ford Hall Forum; General Manager, Museum of Transportation; Coordinator, Jackson‑Mann Community School, Boston, MA; Visiting Lecturer, Tufts University; Director, Career Education Research Collaborative, Beverly, MA; and Program Director, Russell Library, Middletown, CT. His community involvements include Chair, School Committee, Needham (MA) Public Schools; Vice President, Neighborhood Development Corporation of Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA; Officer, South Shore Welfare Advisory Board; President, Consumer Action for Greater Middletown; and President of the School Board in Needham, M.A. B.A., Ed.M., Ph.D.
James A. Kadamus joined CTAC's staff in 2010 as Senior Director of Program and Policy and is responsible for key CTAC education initiatives relating to performance-based compensation, teacher evaluation, state to school district collaboration and school turnaround. For the last five years, Mr. Kadamus has served as Vice President and Partner at Sightlines LLC, an education management consulting firm working with higher education and K-12 institutions. From 1994-2005, Mr. Kadamus served as Deputy Commissioner, Office of Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education, at the New York State Department of Education, Albany, NY. In that capacity, he implemented standards-based preK-12 reform in New York’s school districts serving 3.1 million students, resulting in higher levels of student achievement. He also oversaw the development of New York’s school finance program and managed the $18 billion school aid program. Before his service as Deputy Commissioner Mr. Kadamus served as Associate Commissioner, Office of Finance, Management and Information Services; Assistant Commissioner, Office of Higher and Continuing Education; Assistant Commissioner, Office of Elementary, Secondary and Continuing Education; and Chief, Bureau of Proprietary School Supervision-all at the New York State Education Department. He has testified and advocated before the U.S. Congress and New York State Legislature on numerous education and budget legislation. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Albany, Teachers College at Columbia University, University of Rochester, Cortland College, SUNY New Paltz, and Syracuse University. His community involvements include Board of Directors, Capital District YMCA; and Vice President, Board of Directors, Guilderland Community Center. B.A., M.R.P.
Gerald Kohn, Board Vice President, is an educational author who previously served as the Superintendent of the Harrisburg Public Schools, Harrisburg, PA; Superintendent of the Vineland Public School District, Vineland, NJ; Superintendent of the Bensalem Township School District, Bensalem, PA; Superintendent of the Millburn Township Public Schools, Millburn, NJ; Superintendent of the Triton Regional School District of Rowley, Salisbury and Newbury, MA; Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Watertown, CT; Director of System‑Wide Planning and Special Assistant to the Superintendent, Cambridge, MA, developing the first voluntarily formulated desegregation plan to be approved by Massachusetts State Board of Education; Principal's Intern, Acton, MA; Teaching Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Teacher, St. Joseph's Community School, Roxbury, MA; Teacher, Coach and Math Department Chair, Trenton, NJ; Consultant, American Civil Liberties Union, Trenton, NJ. His community involvements include Co‑Chair, Teacher Action for Better Schools, Trenton, NJ. B.A., M.A.T., Ed.D.
Alfred Ramirez is the Vice President of Government Relations and Diversity at Group O in Rock Island, Illinois. Mr. Ramirez has held several White House appointments, including Special Assistant to the President as Associate Director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel; Senior Advisor at the Corporation for National Service; and Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans at the U.S. Department of Education. Mr. Ramirez previously served as President of the Greater Quad Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Principal Consultant for Diversity Initiatives at ACT, Inc.; Executive Director, Diversity Focus; President of the National Community for Latino Leadership; Director of a $3-million Mattel Foundation initiative to involve parents and community members in their schools; Managing Director for INROADS Los Angeles; Special Assistant to former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros; Corporate Recruiter and Human Resource Specialist at Transamerica; and Faculty Adviser and Assistant Director of Admissions and Minority Recruitment for Columbia University. A W.K. Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellow and a National Urban Fellow, he was selected as one of Hispanic Business Magazine's 100 Influentials and was selected by the Des Moines Register newspaper as one of Iowa’s Top Influentials. He currently serves on the boards of Iowa Public Television, National Latino Children's Institute, the local YMCA, and the Johns Hopkins University Leadership Management Program. He is also a former member of the Iowa Commission of Latino Affairs and the Iowa College Access Network (ICAN). B.A.
Helen Randolph,
Board Treasurer,
is an Instructor at Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA. Ms.
Randolph is a former elementary school teacher and previously
served as Director of Gifted and Talented
Programs for the Newton Public Schools, Assistant Director for Program,
Newton, MA; Instructor, Old Westbury College, student teacher seminars;
Instructor, State University of New York at Stony Brook, courses in
Afro‑American history; Consultant, Detroit Board of Education, parent
training; Consultant, McGraw Hill; Research Associate, Center for Urban
Education, New York City, curriculum development on cultural histories
of Chinese‑Americans and Afro‑Americans; Research Coordinator, Hunter
College, evaluation of consumer practices in New York City, Miami and
San Diego. Her community involvements include Member and Chair of
federal funding, Central Islip, New York School Board; Panelist,
WLIB‑radio, programs on education and employment; and Board of
Managers, YMCA, Greater South Bay Area, New York. B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
candidate.
Lodis Rhodes is Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and Fellow of the American Council on Education. Dr. Rhodes has previously served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Research at the LBJ School, and Assistant to the President, Vice President and Provost of the University of Texas at Austin; Fellow, American Council on Education; and Coordinator, African-American Studies, University of Nebraska. His community involvements include Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Austin Learning Academy; Chairman, Board of Commissioners of the Austin Housing Authority; Task Force Member, Environmental Equity and Justice; Editorial Board Member and Advisor, Texas Center for Educational Research; and Director, National Forum for Black Public Administrators. B.A., M.S., Ph.D.
William J. Slotnik, Founder and Executive Director, has overseen the growth of the Center into one of the nation’s foremost providers of technical assistance, evaluation services, and policy support in the fields of education and community development. CTAC annually assists more than 90 organizations, school districts and state departments of education. He has provided extensive assistance to state education agency leaders, superintendents, state and local boards of education, unions and leadership teams throughout the United States. He has guided and supported the development of replicable systems of assessment, evaluation, and accountability to determine the performance and effectiveness of school districts, school by school, classroom by classroom, teacher by teacher, and student by student. He has led technical assistance and evaluation initiatives nationally which address such issues as student learning objectives, teacher and administrator evaluation, systemic reform, compensation reform, professional development, state-to-school and state-to-district interventions, and transforming underperforming schools. He has been the lead or co-lead author of numerous evaluations (including Pathway to Results, and Catalyst for Change the first comprehensive, longitudinal evaluative studies of the impact of performance-based compensation on student achievement, teacher effectiveness and systems change) and articles, and provides briefings to members of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, state legislatures and departments of education, and the media. B.A., Ed.M.
Suzy Dalton Sonenberg served as Executive Director of the Long Island Community Foundation, a division of The New York Community Trust, from March 1988 through December 2009. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Sonenberg was Program Officer at the New York Foundation, a mid-sized private foundation that makes grants in New York City's most disadvantaged neighborhoods; and Director, Employment and Training Projects, Community Council of Greater New York. She has taught social policy on a graduate and undergraduate level at the Adelphi University School of Social Work, and often appeared as a guest lecturer on fundraising from foundations at various institutions of higher learning in the New York Metropolitan area. Ms. Sonenberg is a founder of several nonprofit organizations on Long Island: ERASE Racism, The Long Island Fund for Women & Girls, Sustainable Long Island and Early Years Institute. Her community involvements include Board of Directors and Executive Committee Member, ERASE Racism; and Emeritus Member, President’s Advisory Council at Adelphi University. She received several dozen honors and awards during her tenure at the Long Island Community Foundation, including an Honorary Doctorate from Adelphi University, the Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award from Long Island Cares, the Abraham Krasnoff Courage and Commitment Award from ERASE Racism and the Woman of Valor Award from the Long Island Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. B.A., M.S.W., L.H.D. (Hon)