Advisory Board 
BayCES Advisory Board Members are local, regional, and national figures who are aligned with our vision of equity and justice and who generously add diverse perspectives and experience to our work in education reform.
James Daly, George Lucas Educational Foundation
James Daly has spent more than 25 years in magazine journalism, frequently tracking the radical effect that technology brings to calcified industries. He is now the editor in chief of Edutopia magazine, produced under the aegis of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Previously, he served as editor in chief and founder of Business 2.0 magazine until the magazine was sold to AOL/Time-Warner in July 2001. Daly also served as the editor in chief of Redherring.com, as well as a features editor at Wired, senior editor at Forbes ASAP and a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. His freelance writing has appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone and Spin to the Los Angeles Times, Boston Phoenix and ID.
Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University
Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, where she has launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of teaching quality, school reform, and educational equity. Among her more than 200 publications is The Right to Learn, recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998, and Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes), recipient of the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000.
Loni Hancock, California State Assembly
Loni Hancock has had a remarkable public service career, spending more than three decades as a forceful advocate for open government, educational reforms, environmental protections, health care, economic development and social justice. She has served at the local, state and federal levels, including under Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Now serving in her third term as the representative of the 14th Assembly District, Assemblywoman Hancock chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Bridging the Achievement Gap. Under her guidance, the Committee has tackled issues related to high dropout rates, school-to-career programs and oversight of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Last year, the Governor signed legislation authored by Assemblywoman Hancock that greatly expands career technical education programs for high school students. Before being elected to the Assembly, Assemblywoman Hancock headed the Western Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Education.
Assemblywoman Hancock broke through the glass ceiling by her election as the first woman to serve as the Mayor of Berkeley, California.
Ann Lieberman, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching
Ann Lieberman leads Carnegie Foundation projects on teacher preparation and the scholarship of K-12 teachers and teacher educators. She is a professor emeritus from Teachers College, Columbia University, as well as co-founder of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching. She has written and edited numerous books and articles on the professional development of teachers and the conditions of school reform. Lieberman is a past president of the American Educational Research Association. She earned her master's at California State University at Northridge and her bachelor's and doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Deborah Meier, New York University & In Defense of Childhood
Deborah W. Meier is currently on the faculty of New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, as senior scholar and adjunct professor as well as Board member and director of New Ventures at Mission Hill, director and advisor to Forum for Democracy and Education, and on the Board of The Coalition of Essential Schools. She is also the Chair of In Defense of Childhood.
Meier has spent more than four decades working in public education as a teacher, writer and public advocate. She was the founder and teacher-director of a network of highly successful public elementary schools in East Harlem. In 1985 she founded Central Park East Secondary School, a New York City public high school in which more than 90% of the entering students went on to college, mostly to 4-year schools. From 1997 to 2005 she was the founder and principal of the Mission Hill School a K-8 Boston Public Pilot school serving 180 children in the Roxbury community. Her books, The Power of Their Ideas, Lessons to America from a Small School in Harlem (1995), Will Standards Save Public Education (2000), In Schools We Trust (2002), Keeping School, with Ted and Nancy Sizer (2004) and Many Children Left Behind (2004) are all published by Beacon Press.
Nancy Nadel, Oakland City Council Member
Nancy Nadel is in her third term as an Oakland City Councilmember. She has been a West Oakland resident for 26 years. Nancy works extensively on violence prevention and obstacles to employment. She is an Executive Board member of the Oakland Community Action Agency, whose charge is to help lift Oaklanders out of poverty. She also spearheaded the effort to get a measure on the ballot to fund violence prevention and enforcement programs. Currently, she is working on several initiatives to address violence and public safety: Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, expanding Adult Literacy services, and opening a new teen center in West Oakland. Nancy received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Alfred University, a Bachelor in Science in Geology from SF State University, and an MS from UC Berkeley in Engineering Geoscience. Prior to joining the council she worked as a teacher, an artist, a geophysicist, a small business owner, and an environmental engineer with the US EPA.
Pedro Noguera, New York University
Pedro Noguera is a professor at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University, a co-director of the Institute for The Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings, and the Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. Noguera pursues research that focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. Noguera has just released three new books: Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools; The Color of Success: Race And High-achieving Urban Youth; and Beyond Resistance: Youth Activism and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America's Youth. Noguera is also the author of the groundbreaking book City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming The Promise of Public Education. Noguera has served as an advisor and engaged in collaborative research with several large urban school districts throughout the United States. He has also served as a member of the US Public Health Service Centers for Disease Control Taskforce on Youth Violence, the Chair of the Committee on Ethics in Research and Human Rights for the American Educational Research Association, and on numerous advisory boards to local and national education and youth organizations.
Bree Picower, New York University
Bree Picower is an Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Teaching & Learning at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Bree was a recipient of a Departmental Fellowship from Steinhardt where she received her Ph.D. Her study on "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching," explored the role that race plays in how student teachers conceptualize urban education and was awarded the Steinhardt Outstanding Dissertation Award of 2007. Her current research focuses on the role of Critical Inquiry Groups as a strategy to support urban educators to teach for equity and social justice. She has taught in public elementary schools in Oakland, California and New York City and is active in the New York Collective of Radical Educators. She also worked for BayCES as a School Coach.
Anna Richert, Mills College
Anna Richert is a professor of education at Mills College in Oakland. She currently teaches courses on inquiry, issues surrounding the teaching of diverse learners, and adolescent development. Dr. Richert is professionally interested in teacher learning and school reform, teacher knowledge, professional education/development, and teacher research. She has published on these topics as well as specifically about developing a stance of inquiry and reflection as a teacher.
Warren Simmons, Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Warren Simmons is Executive Director of the Annenberg Institute and co-directs its work in Community-Centered Education Reform. Dr. Simmons received his Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell University. Over his twenty-five year career in education, Dr. Simmons has worked on urban education issues from several vantage points. As a grant maker at the National Institute of Education and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, he developed and funded initiatives on youth and adult literacy, community development, and urban school reform. As Director of Equity Initiatives for the New Standards Project, a coalition of 17 states and 6 school districts, he led teams of researchers and practitioners who designed a performance-based assessment system to advance curricular and instructional reforms. He serves on the boards and advisory groups of numerous education-reform initiatives, including the Public Education Network, the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, and Cambridge College, and co-teaches a course on Education Systems and Structures.
Carol Tateishi, Bay Area Writing Project
Carol Tateishi is the director of the Bay Area Writing Project, a UC Berkeley program dedicated to improving the teaching of writing in Bay Area schools, kindergarten through college, and enhancing the role of successful classroom teachers. She oversees close to 70 programs for 2,000 teachers each year, and summer writing programs for 400 students. She is interested in writing pedagogy, teacher development, teacher research, and the design of professional development programs and their impact on student learning. She co-coordinates a national initiative aimed at building teacher leadership for inquiry and equity involving five major urban areas. Her publications include Meeting the Challenges: Stories from Today's Classrooms (with M. Barbieri,1996); and "Promoting Academic Literacy," in Toward a Collective Wisdom: Forging Successful Educational Partnerships (2000).
Merrill Vargo, Springboard Schools
Dr. Merrill Vargo, executive director of Springboard Schools, is both an experienced academic and a practical expert in the field of school reform. Before founding Springboard Schools/BASRC in January 1995, Dr. Vargo spent nine years teaching English in a variety of settings, managed her own consulting firm, and served as executive director of the California Institute for School Improvement, a Sacramento-based nonprofit. Dr. Vargo served as Director of Regional Programs and Special Programs and Special Projects for the California Department of Education, where she provided leadership to several key school reform efforts, including the SB 1274 School Restructuring Initiative, Charter Schools, Goals 2000 and the School Improvement Program. As the leader of Springboard Schools, she oversees work to improve student achievement and close gaps with over 80 CA districts.
Bob Wise, Alliance for Excellent Education
Governor Bob Wise became president of the Alliance for Excellent Education in February 2005. Under his leadership, the Alliance has continued to build its reputation as a respected authority on high school policy and to advocate for reform in America's secondary education system, working to ensure that all students graduate from high school prepared for success. Since joining the Alliance, Governor Wise has advised the U.S. Department of Education and frequently testifies before the U.S. Congress. As governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005, he fought for and signed legislation to fund the PROMISE Scholarship Program, which has helped thousands of West Virginia students remain in the Mountain State for college. Governor Wise also established a character education curriculum in all state schools and created the Governor's Helpline for Safer Schools. During his administration, West Virginia saw a significant increase in the number of students completing high school and entering college. From 1983 to 2001, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 2nd District of West Virginia. Governor Wise earned a bachelor's degree from Duke University in 1970 and a J.D. from Tulane University College of Law in 1975.
