The mission of Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education is to provide an interactive forum to investigate critical issues in urban education. The purpose of an electronic journal format is to provide a vehicle for fostering conversations about the complexities of urban education among practitioners, researchers, policymakers and graduate students, groups who often work in isolation from each other. We imagine that the larger community interested in these issues will use the format to provide scholarship, commentary, and critique essential for investigating critical issues in urban education. We hope that the potential for dialogue through an electronic journal will lead to increased cooperation and understanding among all those concerned about urban education.
We encourage graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers to publish studies in progress, as well as findings from completed research. We welcome submissions on a wide variety of topics related to urban schooling, and will also devote specific issues to single themes. In each issue, we plan to include feature-length articles, shorter reports of studies in progress, reviews, commentaries, and opportunities to share comments and questions on the publications. We welcome additional suggestions regarding the use of this electronic format.
Joy Lesnick earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2006. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University where she is studying the relationship between implementation and impact of curriculum programs on student performance. A former fourth-grade inclusion teacher, Joy's dissertation research was a mixed-methods multi-level randomized evaluation of an elementary reading intervention for struggling readers. She can be reached at joy.lesnick@vanderbilt.edu.
Caitlin Anderson is a second-year doctoral student in the Education, Culture, and Society program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include the schooling experiences of African-American and Latino students, with specific focus on issues of social inequality, race, identity, and adolescent peer culture.
Amy Bach is a doctoral candidate in the Reading/Writing/Literacy program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests center around media literacy and the role localized, independent media play in democratic societies; youth-produced documentaries as social commentaries and teaching tools; and the role of visual images in community mobilization and activism.
Kira Baker-Doyle is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Teaching Learning and Curriculum program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include beginning teacher experiences, teacher networks, and teacher inquiry. She is currently involved in conducting research on the experience of first-year teachers in the School District of Philadelphia. She is also the Co-owner of John and Kira's Jubilee Chocolates, a socially-responsible gourmet food business based in Philadelphia.
Phillip Buckley is a PhD candidate in Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of George Washington University's National Law Center, his research interests focus on the impact of law on educational policy and practice. He teaches School Law at GSE and U.S. Law and Society to LLM candidates at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Prior to coming to Penn, he served for three years in the US Department of State English Language Fellowship program, teaching law students at universities in Ukraine and Serbia. He may be reached at buckleyd@dolphin.upenn.edu.
Anne Burns-Thomas is a middle school teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. She received a PhD in the Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Program of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include teacher retention and teacher networks.
Carolyn Chernoff is a joint PhD candidate in Sociology and Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. An ethnographic and qualitative researcher, Chernoff's research interests center on cities, social change, and the arts as well as broadly-defined issues of difference, inclusion, and democracy. She can be reached at chernoff@dolphin.upenn.edu.
Chonika Coleman is a third-year doctoral student in the Foundations and Practices of Education division at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, Chonika taught elementary school in Prince George's County, Maryland. Chonika's research interests include race-centered curriculum development in supplementary education programs and immigrant education.
Sarah Costelloe is a third-year doctoral student in the Educational Policy program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A former teacher in the New York City Teaching Fellows program, she is interested in the preparation and support of new teachers. Her other research interests include alternative certification; new teacher retention; and professional development. She can be reached at sarahcos@dolphin.upenn.edu
Noah D. Drezner is an advanced Ph.D. candidate in higher education in the Policy, Management, and Evaluation Division at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He currently holds degrees from the University of Rochester (B.S.) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.S.Ed.). His research interests include philanthropy within minority and special serving institutions and the exploration of how minority serving institutions add to the civic literacy of the nation. Recently, Mr. Drezner published Thurgood Marshall: A study of philanthropy through racial uplift in an edited volume Uplifting a People: African American Philanthropy and Education by Marybeth Gasman and Katherine V. Sedgwick (Peter Lang, 2005) and “Advancing Gallaudet: Alumni Support for the Nation's University for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and its Similarities to Black Colleges and Universities” in the International Journal of Educational Advancement.
Cheryl Jones-Walker is a doctoral student in the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum program. She came to Penn after teaching elementary and middle level in three different environments. She also worked as a school change coach for a non-profit committed to improving education K-12. Her research interests include teacher and student identity, urban school reform, and collaborative professional development.
Julie Riordan is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Educational Policy program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also affiliated with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), where she has been involved in both program evaluation and policy analysis. In her dissertation, she is examining the relationship between NCLB-mandated teacher qualifications and student achievement among elementary school children.
Katherine Schultz is an Associate Professor of Education and director of the new Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education. Her research focuses on the preparation and on-going support of new teachers in urban public schools. In addition her research addresses adolescent literacy practices, pathways into teaching, and international teacher education. Her recent book, Listening: A Framework for Teaching Across Differences suggests that teachers build their pedagogy and practice by listening closely to students. She traveled to Banda Aceh, Indonesia in the summers of 2005 and 2006 to work with mentor teachers as a part of Penn’s response to the tsunami.
Review
Board
The review board reads and assesses all submissions and makes recommendations to authors for revisions.
Review Board Members include:
Amy Bach
Jamie Bard
Stacey Carlough
Carolyn Chernoff
Amanda Corby
Sarah Costelloe
Noah Drezner
Page Fahrig-Pendse
Claudia Fong
Cynthia Groff
Rena Harris
Esther Kim
Allison Luhrs
Carey Lyddy
Erin Meagher
Clarisse Mesa
Bradley Moore
Julie Riordan
Monica Rowley
Rachel Throop
Brian Tinsley
John Weathers
Christina Wood