"Ladder of Success: Covering Early Childhood Learning"

Speaker Biographies

Janine G. Bacquie, director of the Division of Early Childhood Programs and Services, Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools
During her career, Bacquie has served as early childhood supervisor, assistant principal, coordinator and early childhood classroom and resource teacher. As director, she advocates for early childhood education reform and helps execute programs and policies, which work to ensure a strong start for our youngest learners. She was a member of the governor’s Task Force on Universal Preschool Education and recently co-chaired the Montgomery County Universal Preschool Implementation Work Group.

She continues to successfully collaborate with teachers, parents, administrators, child care providers, community organizations, research institutions and both state and federal education officials to ensure the highest possible quality standards for the care and education of all young children. She works to implement, monitor and support the MCPS Board of Education and Superintendent Jerry D. Weast’s early childhood initiatives, including the Early Success Performance Plan (PreK-3rd) model.

Shana Brodnax, senior manager of Early Childhood Programs, Harlem Children’s Zone
Shana joined HCZ in October 2007, where she oversees the Baby College, Three Year Old Journey, Get Ready for Pre-K, Harlem Gems and the transition to the Promise Academy Charter Schools. Previously, she served as the department director of Workforce Development at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, coordinated services to individuals affected by the World Trade Center attacks as part of the 9/11 United Services Group and administered programs in Harlem, midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Indianapolis.

She was a Jane Addams-Andrew Carnegie Fellow at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and received a bachelor’s degree in African-American studies and political science from Indiana University and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from the Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy.

Harriet Dichter, deputy secretary of the Office of Child Development and Early Learning, Pennsylvania Departments of Public Welfare and Education
The office was created by Governor Edward G. Rendell as part of a new initiative to link the Department of Public Welfare and the Department of Education to bolster early education and care for Pennsylvania children. As the head of that office, Dichter leads state efforts to raise the priority level for early learning, including programs such as Pre-K Counts, the full-day kindergarten initiative, state-based Head Start program, the Keystone Stars early learning program, Nurse Family Partnership, Child Care Works and Early Intervention (0-5).

She oversees planning, program and policy development and implementation for a total budget of $1.3 billion. Previously, she held appointments in the public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. Dichter received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University (summa cum laude) and a juris doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania (cum laude).

Libby Doggett, deputy director, Pew Center on the States
Prior to joining the Pew Center on the States, a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts, Doggett directed Pre-K Now, funded by the Trusts and other foundations, to secure high quality pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds across the country. Through the success of this campaign and others, Pew hired Doggett to oversee four projects which support state campaigns to advance smart state policies and practices that help young children become healthy, productive adults. These efforts seek to expand high quality pre-K, improve access to dental care for disadvantaged children, expand proven home visiting services for at-risk families and educate business leaders about the economic returns to investments in children prenatal to age five.

Upon coming to Washington, D.C., in 1995, Doggett worked in the U.S. Department of Education, where she served as special assistant to the director of special education and as executive director of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council, coordinating multiple federal services for infants, toddlers, children with disabilities and their families. She then worked for the National Head Start Association, directing their HeadsUp! Reading program, an innovative, credit-bearing course designed to provide early childhood professionals the skills needed to help young children learn to read and write. Doggett’s public service record predates her tenure in Washington.

In her home state of Texas, she served as the executive director of the Arc of Texas, the largest voluntary organization for persons with mental retardation and their families in the Lone Star State. She also helped found and then chaired the Disability Policy Consortium, a coalition of 20 Texas disability advocacy organizations. She co-authored the first book written on child care, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act. Honors for her leadership on children’s and disability issues include an appointment to the Texas Commission on Children and Youth, the Governor’s Trophy from the Governor’s Committee on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities in Texas and the Friend of Early Childhood Intervention award. She holds a doctorate from the University of Texas in early childhood special education. During her undergraduate years at the University of Texas, she met her husband Lloyd Doggett, currently a U.S. Representative from Texas and a senior member on the Ways & Means Committee. The Doggetts have two daughters, Lisa and Cathy, and two granddaughters, Ella and Clara

Danielle Ewen, director of the Child Care and Early Education team, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Ewen works on federal and state issues around child care and early education, particularly the reauthorizations of the Child Care and Development Block Grant and Head Start. She has written extensively about financing high quality early care and education systems, as well as the federal child care subsidy program and how it impacts low-income families, and state and local policies to create and implement early childhood programs. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications on state and federal policy, including All Together Now, a research report that examines the implementation of state pre-kindergarten programs in community-based child care settings, several reports on the use of Title I funds for early childhood programs and analyses of federal and state child care subsidy policies.

Prior to joining CLASP, she worked at the Children’s Defense Fund as a senior program associate in the Child Care and Development division. Ewen was also the assistant director for the National Child Care Information Center and served as a policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Education in the Office of Migrant Education, where she worked on issues related to implementation of Chapter 1 programs, family literacy, bilingual education and evaluation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Chester Finn, Jr., president, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
A scholar, educator and public servant, Finn has been at the forefront of the national education debate for 35 years. Born and raised in Ohio, he received his doctorate in education policy from Harvard University. He has served, inter alia, as a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, counsel to the U.S. Ambassador to India, legislative director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and assistant secretary for Educational Research and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education.

A senior fellow at Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University and chairman of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Finn is also president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. He serves on the board of several other organizations concerned with primary-secondary schooling. The author of 16 books and more than 400 articles, his work has appeared in such publications as The Weekly Standard (Washington), The Christian Science Monitor, Commentary magazine (New York), The Public Interest, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Education Week, Harvard Business Review and The Boston Globe.

Finn is the recipient of awards from the Educational Press Association of America, Choice magazine, the Education Writers Association and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. He holds an honorary doctor of laws degree from Colgate University. He and his wife, Renu Virmani, a physician, have two grown children and two granddaughters. They live in Chevy Chase, Md.

Margaret Freedson, assistant professor of early childhood, elementary and literacy education, Montclair State University
In addition, Freedson is a research/policy fellow at the National Center for Early Education Research at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She received her doctorate in language and literacy from Harvard Graduate School of Education and she has conducted research examining bilingual education programs for indigenous students in Mexico and Guatemala, and preschool programs serving immigrant and language minority children in the U.S. Freedson’s current research focuses on bilingual language and literacy development and measures of preschool classroom quality that predict school preparedness in low-income English language learners, particularly those from Spanish-speaking homes.

Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder, Families and Work Institute
She is the author of over 35 books and reports, including the groundbreaking book Ask the Children: The Breakthrough Study That Reveals How to Succeed at Work and Parenting (Harper Paperbacks, 2001). She has published more than 100 articles in academic journals, books and magazines. A leading authority on work family issues, Galinsky was a presenter at the 2000 White House Conference on Teenagers and the 1997 White House Conference on Child Care.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from Vassar College. She was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005 and a 2006 Purpose Prize Fellow. A popular keynote speaker, she appears regularly at national conferences, on television and in the media, including on Today, Good Morning America, The Early Show and Oprah. Before co-founding Families and Work Institute, she was on the faculty of Bank Street College of Education for 25 years, where she helped establish the field of work and family life.

Galinsky is also a photographer. Her latest one-person shows of her photography were at the New York Hall of Science in September 2006, at UMA Gallery in New York City in January 2007, and at RiverWinds Gallery in Beacon New York, in September 2008.

Donald J. Hernandez, professor, Department of Sciology, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
He formerly served as special assistant, U.S. Bureau of the Census, and he directed the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine study on the health and adjustment of immigrant children and families. He authored America’s Children: Resources from Family, Government, and the Economy, the first national research documenting the timing and reasons for family revolutionary changes experienced by children since the Great Depression. He is currently using the Foundation for Child Development’s Index of Child Well-Being (CWI) to explore child well-being disparities by race-ethnic and immigrant origins, and socioeconomic status, conducting research on linguistic isolation in immigrant families, and leading a UNICEF project for internationally comparable indicators for children in immigrant and native-born families in eight rich countries.

Hernandez has served on numerous advisory groups and committees addressing data needs for the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Society for Research in Child Development and the Foundation for Child Development.

Walter Gilliam, assistant professor of child psychiatry, psychology director, The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at the Yale Child Study Center
His research involves early childhood education and intervention policy analysis, ways to improve the quality of pre-kindergarten and child care services, and the impact of early childhood education programs on children’s school readiness. His scholarly writing addresses early childhood care and education programs, school readiness and developmental assessment of young children.

Gilliam has led national analyses of state-funded pre-kindergarten policies and mandates, how prekindergarten programs are being implemented across the range of policy contexts and the effectiveness of these programs at improving school readiness and educational achievement.

Karen Howard, director of policy and government affairs, Nurse-Family Partnership
Howard is also a resource on early childhood and home visitation issues to policy staff on Capitol Hill and in federal agencies. Prior to joining Nurse-Family Partnership in 2007, she served nearly three years as legislative counsel on health care and education for former Colorado’s Sen. Ken Salazar. In that capacity, Howard advised Sen. Salazar on health care initiatives involving Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, small business health care proposals, health care reform and finance initiatives, and numerous other issues relating to health care policy. In addition, she advised Sen. Salazar on education policy, including early childhood education, the No Child Left Behind Act and higher education issues.

Prior to working as legislative counsel, she served for five years as deputy attorney general of the Employment and Business & Licensing sections of the Colorado Office of Attorney General. Her responsibilities included supervising and directing both attorneys who defended the state of Colorado in employment actions in state and federal courts and attorneys who prosecuted disciplinary and licensure cases against individuals and businesses that violated applicable laws and standards of practice. Howard has also been a litigator in private practice law firms in Philadelphia and Denver.

She earned her law degree at Georgetown University and her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Albany, State University of New York.

David Lawrence Jr., president, The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation
Lawrence retired in 1999 as publisher of The Miami Herald to work in the area of early childhood development and readiness. He is president of The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation and “University Scholar for Early Childhood Development and Readiness” at the University of Florida. Gov. Charlie Crist named him to the Florida’s Children and Youth Cabinet in 2007. In 2002, he led the campaign for The Children’s Trust, a dedicated source of early intervention and prevention funding for children in Miami-Dade (Florida), with an 85 percent reaffirmation from the voters in 2008. Named by Gov. Jeb Bush to the Florida Partnership for School Readiness, he chaired the oversight board twice.

He serves on the board of the Foundation for Child Development in New York and the executive advisory board for the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2002-2003, he chaired the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection. In 2002, he was a key figure in passing a statewide constitutional amendment to provide pre-K for all 4 year olds. He is a board member and former chair of the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade and Monroe.
The David Lawrence Jr. K-8 Public School opened in 2006 across from the north campus of Florida International University. A fully endowed chair in early childhood studies is established in his name at the University of Florida’s College of Education.

Before coming to Miami in 1989, he was publisher and executive editor of the Detroit Free Press. Previously, he was editor of The Charlotte Observer, and earlier worked in reporting and editing positions at four newspapers. During his tenure as publisher of The Miami Herald, the paper won five Pulitzer Prizes.

Joan Lombardi, deputy assistant secretary and inter-departmental liaison for early childhood development, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Lombardi brings a wealth of experience drawn from her earlier government service, as well as insights gained through her leadership as founding chair of the Birth to Five Policy Alliance and other initiatives. Lombardi served during the 1990s in the Administration for Children and Families as deputy assistant secretary for policy and external affairs, the first associate commissioner of the Child Care Bureau and the project director of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Re-designation of Head Start. She has been an advisor on early childhood development to a number of organizations, including the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF.

While a research professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, she served as the founding coordinator of Global Action for Children, a board member for Voices for America’s Children and the Firelight Foundation. Lombardi holds a master’s degree in early childhood education from Boston College Lynch School of Education and a Ph.D. in human development education from the University of Maryland. She is the author of Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support and Build Communities (Temple University Press, 2002), and co-editor of A Beacon of Hope: The Promise of Early Head Start for American’s Youngest Children (Zero to Three Press, 2004).

Gene Steuerle, former vice president, Peter G. Peterson Foundation
Among his other previous positions, he served as a senior fellow of the Urban Institute, co-director of its Tax Policy Center, deputy assistant secretary for Tax Analysis of the U.S. Treasury, president of the National Tax Association and chair of the 1999 technical panel advising Social Security on its methods and assumptions. From 1984 to 1986, he worked as the original organizer and economic coordinator of the Treasury Department’s tax reform effort. He also served as the principal consultant to the Governor’s Commission on Tax Reform in West Virginia.

Steuerle is also the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 15 books and hundreds of articles and Congressional testimonies, as well as a prolific columnist who has written for Tax Notes and Financial Times. Among other honors, he received the first Davie/Davis Public Service Award from the National Tax Association in 2005. He has a Ph.D. in economics with a distinction in public finance, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Brad Strong, director of education, Children Now
Strong directs and supervises Children Now's education projects including after school, preschool and K-12 education reform. Most recently, he served as EdVoice’s legislative director for seven years where he played a leadership role on key education issues including in the creation of California’s Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System.

Prior to joining EdVoice, Strong worked in the legislature for over nine years including the offices of Sen. Dede Alpert, Sen. John Vasconcellos, and Assemblyman Ted Lempert. While with the legislature, he staffed the Charter Schools Act, the State Teachers’ Retirement Creditable Compensation Bill - STRS Benefit Package, and the Smaller Classes, Safer Schools and Financial Accountability Act, among other significant legislation. Strong received a bachelor’s degree in public administration from California State University, Chico.

Greg Toppo, national K-12 education reporter, USA Today
A graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M., Toppo taught in both public and private schools for eight years before moving over to journalism. His first job was with The Santa Fe New Mexican, a 50,000-circulation daily. He worked for four years as a wire service reporter with The Associated Press, first in Baltimore and then in Washington, D.C., where he became the AP’s national K-12 education writer. Greg lives near Baltimore with his wife, Julie, and their two daughters.

Pilar Torres, founder and director, Centro Familia
Centro Familia is a 10-year-old community-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality and availability of early care and education opportunities in low-income, immigrant neighborhoods. She has a master’s degree in education and counseling psychology from the University of Missouri. She has been able to influence and solicit support from key executives, government officials and community leaders. Involved in policy and political advocacy, she serves on several committees and boards at a local and national level. She has 20 years of experience in the delivery of social services to low income, English language learners and immigrant communities, in positions that have ranged from clinician to executive director.

Yasmina Vinci, executive director, National Head Start Association
Vinci comes to the National Head Start Association after several years as principal and founder of EDGE Consulting Partners and over ten years of executive director experience at national organizations. She founded EDGE after receiving her master of public administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. As the first executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), she led the transition from an all-volunteer association of less than 200 child care resource and referral agencies to a powerful national network of 860+ community-based organizations.

She began her career as the executive director of an inner city child care center and, prior to joining NACCRRA, she was the manager of special projects in the New Jersey Department of Human Services, where she managed the dependent care grant, coordinated the development of the state’s initial plan for the implementation of the Child Care and Development Block Grant and supervised a number of research, immunization and Head Start-related projects.

In addition to her role as executive director of the National Head Start Association, Vinci also serves on the governing board of the Council for Professional Recognition, the board of the Children’s Investment Fund and the advisory boards of Boston EQUIP and Bright Horizons Family Solutions.

Leslie Walker, Knight Visiting Professor in Digital Innovation at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism
Walker teaches Internet journalism and consults with faculty on digital media strategies. She previously was a reporter and editor for The Washington Post, covering the rise of the Internet as a media platform from 1999 until 2007. She served as editor-in-chief of washingtonpost.com in the early days of Web news. Walker also is the author of Sudden Fury, a literary nonfiction book that was made into a television movie in 1993.

Marci Young, director, Pre-K Now
Pre-K Now is a campaign that advances high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds. Prior to joining Pre-K Now, she was the director of the Center for the Child Care Workforce, a project of the American Federation of Teachers Educational Foundation and a deputy director in the their educational issues department where she oversaw all of the organization’s early childhood projects and activities to promote high quality early childhood education. She was the executive director of CCW when it was an independent nonprofit agency and co-authored several studies about early childhood education with specific emphasis on improving the status and condition of the workforce. Previously, she was a kindergarten teacher at an elementary school in Montgomery County, Md. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University and a master’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.