PI Speakers

Mark Church recently joined both ATLAS Communities as a Teaching, Learning and Assessment Specialist and Harvard University's Project Zero as a program specialist after having taught both elementary school and middle school students the past 13 years in the United States, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the classroom, Mark spent a number of years using Teaching for Understanding to frame his work with students: considering deeply what topics were worth understanding, thinking adventurously about how understanding could be fostered and developed among learners, and actively reflecting upon how learners could show evidence of their developing and deepening understanding in purposeful ways.
Outside of the classroom, Mark has taught online courses on Teaching for Understanding and has coached several study groups of teachers across many different grade levels and subject areas exploring big issues of teaching, learning, and building understanding. Most recently, Mark has been involved in Project Zero's Visible Thinking research, examining the role of thinking opportunities and the impact this has on establishing significant learning experiences for students in K-12 classrooms.

Brett Cormier M.Ed. has been working in the Round Rock Independent School District, at Stony Point High School as an assistant principal. He is currently working on his doctorate and writing his dissertation: Deconstructing the Deficit Thinking Paradigm in District and Campus Level Leadership By Any Means Necessary to Close the Achievement Gap, at The University of Texas at Austin where he is a student in The Executive Leadership Program in the Department of Educational Administration, a preparation program for Superintendents/CEO’s. His research areas are the Deficit Thinking Paradigm, Achievement Gap, Effective Urban Districts and Schools, The Superintendency, Leadership in Schools, Social Justice and Equity in Education, African American academic achievement, Latino academic achievement, and Academic achievement of students of poverty.
Mr. Cormier received his undergraduate degree in Pre-Law/Criminal Justice, with a minor in Political Science from Park University. He received a Masters degree in Special Education with a minor in Curriculum and Instruction from Southwest Texas State University. He received a Masters degree in Administration from Texas State University-San Marcos.

Louis Delgado is the founder and principal of Vanguard High School in New York City. He has established his high school as one of the Coalition of Essential Schools as well as implementing the 12CES principles, including personalized teaching and learning in conjunction with universal course of study. From 1984-1993, Louis Delgado worked at City School in New York, NY as the Director of the Executive Internship Program. He received his BA in education from Brooklyn College, His M.A. in Education at Hunter College and in 1992 he received his MA in Administration and Supervision Pace University

Dr. M. Ann Levett (formerly Levett-Lowe) has served as a professional educator for nearly 30 years.  She serves as Executive Director of the School Development Program (SDP), a national school reform program at the
World-renowned Child Study Center at Yale University.  In addition to managing this national program that serves over 400 schools in 35 school districts in mainland USA, she oversees the program’s university partnerships and its projects in Puerto Rico and Dublin, Ireland. 

Before beginning this fulltime position with SDP, Dr. Levett served as Chair of the Master’s in Educational Leadership and Principal Licensure programs at Antioch University McGregor in Yellow Springs, Ohio.   Prior to that post, she served in the positions of interim superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, secondary principal, assistant principal, and special education teacher.

Dr. Levett has been a speaker for state and national conferences, and she serves as an educational consultant for school districts, community organizations, and other entities.  She has created and conducted leadership development academies for principals, aspiring administrators, and parents in addition to programs designed to address behavior management issues and special education concerns. Dr. Levett's research interests include minority student achievement, leadership development, and instructional leadership. Her most recent publication is a chapter entitled, Performance Management: The Principal's First Priority. This appears in The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action.

Vivian Louie is a sociologist who focuses her research on how immigrants and the children of immigrants learn about and engage with the K-16 and graduate educational system in the United States, and develop identities. She is particularly interested in comparisons across and within immigrant groups, as well as with native born American groups. In one stream of research, Louie has focused on how second generation individuals (American born or reared children of immigrants) learn about college and the paths they take to get there, and the identities they form as they are incorporated into American life. Her book, Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education, and Opportunity among Chinese Americans, examines such issues among second generation Chinese Americans.  She is presently working on a book manuscript currently titled, Crossing Borders in America: Dominican and Colombian Experiences of Immigration, Education, and Identities. Her publications have appeared in the International Migration Review, Identities, Teacher’s College Record, and the Review of Research in Education, and peer-reviewed edited volumes.   

Louie is pursuing a second line of inquiry on the messages and practices immigrant parents give to their young second generation children around ethnic language, assimilation, and education. Here, she examines language as central to assimilation and identity processes, rather than as an indicator of assimilation. Louie’s third line of inquiry examines the development of social identities and business skills among MBA students from the People’s Republic of China studying in the United States. This study examines the ways in which Chinese international MBA students, who embody transnational lives, interact with the American social context, and how this maps onto immigration paradigms, and the ways in which they experience the learning of global skill sets.

She is assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and received her A.B. from Harvard University, M.A. in Communication from Stanford University, and PhD in Sociology from Yale University. She has previously worked as a newspaper journalist and a lecturer in Sociology at Harvard. Louie is a native of New York City.

Nancy Love is Director of Program Development at Research for Better Teaching, where she leads this professional development organization’s research and development. She also directs the Using Data Project at TERC, where she works with schools nationally to improve teaching and learning through effective and collaborative use of multiple sources of school data. She is the developer of the Using Data Process, a comprehensive professional development program and supporting materials to prepare data coaches to lead collaborative inquiry with school- and district-based data teams. This program has produced significant gains in student achievement as well as increased collaboration and data use in schools across the country.

Love has also authored several books and articles on data use, including A Data Coach’s Guide to Closing Achievement Gaps: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry (with Stiles, Mundry, and DiRanna) with Corwin Press (2007) and Using Data/Getting Results: A Practical Guide to School Improvement in Mathematics and Science (2002, Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. She is currently writing a book about the successes and lessons of the Using Data project, to be published by the National Science Foundation in 2007.

Marjorie Stealey's first principalship was as an ATLAS principal at Norview High School in 1992 when she became the first woman high school principal in Norfolk, VA. Since then she has lead her school from one of the lowest performing to one of the most improved in the country.
In 2005, Norview High School met AYP, received the "Dispelling the Myth Award" from The Education Trust Foundation, the Change Award by Fordham University and was named a Model High School by the National Association of State School Leaders, and the International Center for Leadership. Developing staff, Small Learning Communities, Content Teams, Data Analysis, Dodson Scholars, and Respect and Resiliency Campaigns have been pivotal in the school's journey.
Marjorie is a national presenter and consultant and her work has been enhanced by long term professional development as an Annenburg principal, and as an ATLAS principal from its first year.

Angela Valenzuela is the Haskew Centennial professor in both the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Administration at the University of Texas at Austin.  She is also the director of the newly formed Texas Center for Education Policy, a university-wide policy center at the University of Texas at Austin.  A Stanford University graduate, her previous teaching positions were in Sociology at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1990-98), as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston (1998-99). Her research and teaching interests are in the sociology of education, minority youth in schools, educational policy, and urban education reform.  She is also the author of Subtractive Schooling:  U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (State University of New York Press, 1999) and editor of Leaving Children Behind:  How “Texas-style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth (State University of New York Press, 2004).