BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Carol Choye, Board President, 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.
Mónica Byrne-Jiménez 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.
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, MA. B.A., Ed.M., Ph.D.
James Kadamus
is Vice President and Partner, Sightlines LLC in
Madison, CT. He previously served as Deputy Commissioner, Office of
Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education, New York State
Department of Education, Albany, NY. In that capacity he implemented
standards-based preK-12 reform in more than 700 New York State school
districts serving 3.1 million students, resulting in higher levels of
student achievement, and he developed and managed the $12 billion
school aid program. He previously 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; and as Senior Examiner, New York State
Excelsior Award. 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 Superintendent of the Harrisburg Public Schools in Harrisburg, PA. Dr. Kohn previously served as the Superintendent of the Vineland Public School District in 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; 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.
Helen Randolph,
Board Treasurer, is a Teacher with the Newton
Public Schools and Instructor at Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA.
Ms. Randolph has 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 Slotnik,
Founder and Executive Director, has overseen the growth of the Center
into one of the nation’s foremost providers of research, evaluation,
and technical assistance in the fields of community development and
education. His accomplishments include coalescing and assisting
Roxbury's Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, the broadest-based
effort to revitalize an urban neighborhood in the United States. He
also developed the National Urban Reform Network, a fifteen-city
coalition of urban school districts, community agencies, parents, and
corporate chief executive officers to shape national policy on issues
of education and family support. In addition, Bill provided
the training that enabled the Cambridge Public Schools to implement a
racial balancing plan that was recognized as the most effective process
of school desegregation in the nation. In the education arena, he
created the nationally acclaimed Leadership of School Reform project,
which develops the capacity of urban school districts to implement
systemic school reform and to evaluate the reform’s impact on the
educational system and on student achievement.
Judith Winston is a Principal at Winston Withers Associates. She previously served as General Counsel, U.S. Department of Education, a position for which she was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She was also the Department’s Under Secretary, serving as the Secretary’s principal advisor on education and management policy, and overseeing management operations at the Department. She also served as the Executive Director of the President’s Initiative on Race. She previously served as Research Professor of Law, Washington College of Law at American University; Deputy Director for Public Policy, Women’s Legal Defence Fund; Deputy Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under law; Executive Assistant and Legal Counsel to the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and Special Assistant to the Director, Office for Civil Rights in the former U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare. She has received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the DC Bar Association and the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers Achievement Award from the American Bar Association. B.A., J.D.