Leaders for quality public education from cradle to career
Ruth Anderson, chair of the Tacoma Literacy Council, is on two missions: 1) teach the 20 – 25% of adults who can’t read how to read and 2) be a spokesperson for that silent segment of people who cannot read and write. Ruth says, “I don’t think the average American realizes what a pervasive problem [...]
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Thea Alongi is the mother of a 14-year-old daughter in Tacoma Public Schools and the Treasurer of the Tacoma Council PTA. Concerned about her daughter’s lack of progress in math, Thea is taking her daughter to extra tutoring in the subject. She discusses what the tutoring process has been like and what being an engaged [...]
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Last year staff of McCarver Elementary School accepted Tacoma Housing Authority’s challenge to look at some kind of improved or reformed teaching model for the school as part of a program to provide stability to 50 low-income students. Early this school year, the staff unanimously voted to become an International Baccalaureate program. McCarver Elementary principal [...]
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Michael Power is a career educator, Manager of Educational Programs at Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) and author of the booklet, “Reading with Children.” Power is working to ensure “that the children of our families (in public housing) do not become our clients as adults.” Schools say they can’t do it all. THA, along with a [...]
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Troy Christensen is the administrator of homeless programs for Pierce County, former chair of Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness, and former chair of Washington State Coalition for the Homeless who fears that we are living in a seemingly endless cycle of budget cuts that leave an increasingly large number of families homeless. Christensen says [...]
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Scott Markowitz, is a 4th grade teacher at Christensen Elementary School in Franklin Pierce School District in Tacoma who became interested in the idea of using developmental assets in his teaching. Developmental assets are individual resources that young people have available to them that help them have positive experiences and become successful adults. Having caring [...]
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Beth Sigall, attorney, special education advocate, and mother of three children, (including one with autism), believes the aim of the school district should be to put every special education advocate out of business. She was inspired to become an advocate when she saw the distress of another parent trying to decipher the special education law [...]
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Greg Eisnaugle is the principal of Lincoln Center, a college prep program designed for underprivileged students at Lincoln High School. Inspired by a 60 Minutes story on KIPP Academy, Eisnaugle modeled and implemented KIPP’s successful formula to close the achievement gap at Lincoln Center. Eisnaugle believes that a key teaching strategy is to reach all [...]
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Vicky McKinney is the program director for the parent training information and training program at Partnerships for Action and Voices for Empowerment. She started her journey in advocacy when she adopted a foster child whom she later learned had been diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Realizing that there was little support or information for parents [...]
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Robert Brown, a 39-year teaching veteran, believes that Tacoma’s social promotion policy in the primary grades has to end if we’re to reduce the achievement gap. “Tacoma has a notorious problem with promoting kids with a 0.0 grade point average from middle school to high school,” he said. For Brown, encouraging students to read outside [...]
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