As a teacher educator, I am committed to educating all children to reach their potential. Too often, though, circumstances present themselves that prevent many, many, children from reaching their potential. Moreover, too often as a society we all too willingly concede a certain percentage of our population to dropout – this troubles me deeply.
I am the chair of the faculty of teacher education and I see my greatest strength as one where I build direct connections between the research, teaching, and service activities of my faculty with the research and outreach activities of the NDPC. The Network can provide overwhelming and powerful evidence to the American people that there is a dropout/pushout crisis and at the same time provide evidence of ways to address this crisis.