Kay Toliver is first and foremost a teacher. Her teaching philosophy is simple: All children can learn. It is the teacher’s job to expand minds and take children from the known to the unknown.

Kay was born and raised in East Harlem and the South Bronx. She is a proud product of the New York City public school system, graduating from Harriet Beecher Stowe Junior High, Walton High School and Hunter College (AB 1967, MA 1971) with graduate work at the City College of New York in mathematics.

Becoming a teacher was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Kay’s parents always stressed that education was the key to a better life. By becoming a teacher, she hoped to inspire African-American and Hispanic youths to realize their own dreams.

For more than 30 years, Kay taught mathematics and communication arts at P.S. 72/ East Harlem Tech in Community School District 4. Prior to instructing seventh and eight grade students, she taught grades one through six for 15 years.

Kay Toliver’s classroom is a place where students can talk without fear, write, manipulate ideas, and listen. The focus is on integrating math with other curricula so students can begin to see that mathematics goes beyond numbers and computation.

To show teachers throughout the country how she creates enthusiasm for mathematics among her students, Kay has worked with the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE) to create a number of educational video products. These materials include the Peabody award-winning documentary Good Morning Miss Toliver classroom series, The Eddie Files, and the staff development series The Kay Toliver Files and Teacher Talk.

In addition to the many keynote and workshop presentations Kay has conducted over the past 10 years, she has worked with The Futures Channel to present staff development institutes and parent engagement events at schools throughout the country.

In 2001, Kay officially retired from teaching to continue her work in staff development and to create Toliver’s Tales. It is also rumored that she can also be found at P.S. 72 on a “volunteer” basis, mentoring teachers. She is the winner of the Presidential, Disney and Kilby Awards.

Hall Davidson taught middle and high school English, mathematics, Spanish, and bilingual mathematics. He left the classroom to teach math on television in Los Angeles on an Emmy-winning program and spent 20 years at PBS stations teaching and leading staff developments in person and on-air. While producing television series on education and technology, he led a media consortium serving 17 districts and 200,000 students. He frequently contributes articles to national educational publications. With a team he founded Kitzu.org, a resource of free online kits to encourage project-based learning with media. He served on the board of Computer-Using Educators for six years and consulted for media corporations and professional organizations. For a dozen years he coordinated the nation’s oldest student media festival, the California Student Media Festival. He was site chairperson at his children’s elementary school where the categorical budget required his signature. He joined Discovery Education in 2005 where he blogs, creates webinars, and works in educational partnerships as a director of the Discovery Educator Network, connecting thousands of teachers nationwide. He has spoken about technology and education to audiences around the world.

Dr . Jon Saphier is the Founder and President of Research for Better Teaching, Inc., an educational consulting organization in Acton, Massachusetts that is dedicated to the professionalization of teaching and leadership.  Since 1979, he and his RBT colleagues have taught in-depth professional development programs centered on the knowledge base of teaching to educators in more than 200 school districts in the United States and other countries.

Dr. Saphier is an internationally recognized consultant on teacher supervision and evaluation, staff development, teacher induction, core values, as well as on school culture and professional community.  He has served as a keynote speaker, panelist and presenter at national and international education conference.  He is an experienced classroom teacher and supervisor in grades K-12.

Dr. Saphier is an author and co-author of eight books, including The Skillful Teacher-now in its 6th edition, Howe to Make Supervision and Evaluation Really Work, How to Bring Vision to School Improvement, How to Make Decision That Stay Made, and more recently, On Common Ground and John Adams’ Promise, as well as numerous articles. 

Pedro Noguera is one of America's most important voices for healthy public education. An expert on school reform, diversity, and the achievement gap, he is a currently a professor at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. He is also a part-time high school teacher, the author of several groundbreaking texts, a regular guest on CNN, and a dynamic speaker who translates social theory into concise, hip language with emotional impact and intellectual rigor.

Pedro Noguera is the Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, and has been a professor at the graduate schools of both Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books, including the seminal City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming The Promise of Public Education and Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools. He has also engaged in collaborative research with large urban school districts.

Recently, he helped launch, A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a group of public policy experts in various fields (housing, education, civil rights), and from across the political spectrum, working to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little. The group works in areas that research shows must be addressed if we are to keep our promises to all of America's children.

Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Recognized as a worldwide authority on educational reform, Michael is engaged in training, consulting, and evaluating change projects around the world and his books have been published in many languages.

Michael Fullan is currently Special Advisor to the Premier and Minister of Education in Ontario. His book, Leading in a Culture of Change was awarded the 2002 Book of the Year Award by the National Staff Development Council and Breakthrough (with Peter Hill and Carmel Crévola) won the 2006 Book of the Year Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

A list of his widely acclaimed books, articles and other resources can be found at www.michaelfullan.ca

• What’s Worth Fighting For trilogy (with Andy Hargreaves)
• Change Forces trilogy
• Leading in a Culture of Change which was awarded the 2002 Book of the Year Award by the National Staff Development Council
• The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, March 2003
• Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action, 2005
• Breakthrough, (with Peter Hill and Carmel Crévola), 2006
• Learning Places, (with Clif St. Germain), 2006
• Turnaround Leadership, 2006
• The New Meaning of Educational Change, 4th Edition, 2007
• What’s Worth Fighting for in the Principalship? 2nd Edition, 2008
• The Six Secrets of Change, 2008

 

Dr. Jeff Howard, trained social psychologist, has developed a comprehensive set of field-tested training programs, consulting services and materials for adults and youth.  He is also the founder of J. Howard and Associates, a corporate training and consulting firm that is part of the Novations Group, Inc. Dr. Howard hold an A.B. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University.

Dr. Howard is the founder and president of The Efficacy Institute.  The Efficacy Institute, Inc. is a national, not-for-profit agency of education to high standards, particularly children of color and the economically disadvantaged.  The program is base don a model developed by Dr. Howard on a model of learning based on the idea that intelligence can be built through Effective Effort.  The aim is to help adults operate from a simple belief:  all young people can learn at very high levels if the process of education is effectively organized. 

Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, has served as President of UMBC (The University of Maryland, Baltimore County) since May, 1992.  His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. 

He serves as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, and universities and school systems nationally.  He also serves on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, France-Merrick Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation (Chair), and The Urban Institute.  He also sits on the boards of Constellation Energy Group, McCormick & Company, and the Baltimore Equitable Society.  He also served on the board of the Maryland Humanities Council as both a member and Chair.  He currently chairs the National Academies’ Committee on Underrepresented Groups and the Science & Engineering Workforce Pipeline.

Examples of recent honors include being named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report in 2008; election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society; receiving the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education, the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, and the Columbia University Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service; being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Marylander of the Year by the editors of the Baltimore Sun; and being listed among Fast Company magazine’s first Fast 50 Champions of Innovation in business and technology.  He also holds honorary degrees from more than a dozen institutions, including Haverford College, Princeton University, and Duke University. 
He has authored numerous articles and co-authored two books, Beating the Odds and Overcoming the Odds (Oxford University Press), focusing on parenting and high-achieving African American males and females in science.  Both books are used by universities, school systems, and community groups around the country. 
A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Born in 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Hrabowski graduated at 19 from Hampton Institute with highest honors in mathematics.  At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he received his M.A. (mathematics) and four years later his Ph.D. (higher education administration/statistics) at age 24.

On June 30, 2008 Dr. Kriner Cash was unanimously selected to become the 12th Superintendent in the history of Memphis City Schools.  Prior to coming to Memphis City Schools he was the Chief of Accountability and Systemwide Performance for Miami-Dade County Public Schools in October 2004.  He earned a Doctor of Education degree in Cultural Diversity and Curriculum Reform from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts; a B.A. in Political Science from Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; and an M.A. in Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University, Stanford, California. 

Dr. Cash’s extensive work history includes Superintendent of Schools, Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools in Massachusetts; Associate Dean, Interim Director, Supervisor, Principal Investigator, and Co-Program Director, and Assistant Professor, Howard University, School of Education, Washington, D.C.; and Department Chair, Director of Teacher Education, Assistant Professor, College Supervisor, Academic Advisor, Field Placement Officer, and Program Developer/Evaluator, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Massachusetts. 

Dr. Cash has dedicated his career to ensuring an equal and high quality education for all students in public schools.  He holds membership in numerous educational and civic organizations. 

Glenn Eric Singleton is a product of public elementary and independent secondary school, Singleton earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Master's degree from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Singleton began his career as an Ivy League admission director. In 1992, he founded an educational group to more closely support families in their transitions within and between K–12 and higher education. His company later grew into its intended mission of addressing systemic issues of educational inequity by providing guidance to districts as to how to meet the needs of underserved student of color populations.

Glenn Singleton and his associates design and deliver individualized, comprehensive support for school districts in the form of leadership training, coaching and consulting. Working at all levels from the superintendent to beginning teachers, Singleton's educational group helps educators focus on heightening their awareness of institutional racism and developing effective strategies for closing the achievement gap in their schools. In 1995, Glenn Singleton developed "Beyond Diversity", a nationally recognized seminar aimed at helping administrators, teachers, students and parents identify, define and examine the powerful intersection of race and schooling. The "Beyond Diversity" seminar has provided a foundation for principal leadership development and teacher action-research work. Today, thousands of seminar participants throughout the country practice the agreements and conditions of "Courageous Conversation" as they struggle to usher in culturally proficient curriculum, instruction and assessment.

In 2003, Glenn Singleton was the recipient for the National School Public Relations Association Eugene T. Carothers Human Relations Award for outstanding service in the fields of human rights and human relations. He has appeared on ABC’s "Good Morning America", has hosted and produced educational programs for cable access television, and has written numerous articles on the topics of equity, institutional racism, leadership and staff development for national journals, magazines and newspapers. Glenn Singleton is also the author of a book entitled Courageous Conversations About Race: A Strategy for Achieving Equity in Schools.

Glenn Singleton is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools. Glenn is the founder of the Foundation for a College Education and continues to serve on the Advisory Board.