NEPC Topic Experts on Foundation Involvement in School Reform

Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr. heads a management, education, and litigation consultant group.  He earned a B.A. degree from North Carolina Central University, a Masters and Ph.D from Michigan State University, and a post-doctoral Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He most recently served as Professor of Community Management & Policy Practice in the School of Social Work, Associate Director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Kenan Institute in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, and as a Fellow in the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He was previously Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Policy & Community Studies in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an adjunct professor in the Departments of Curriculum & Instruction, Urban Studies, and Allied Health.

Dr. Farrell has served as a consultant to NEA, AFT, and their state and local affiliates.

Dr. Farrell has published numerous essays and articles on K-12 education, the agenda to privatize public schools, diversity, social and immigration issues, and death penalty mitigation.  He has appeared on National Public Radio (NPR)—The Connection and the Today Show (with Matt Lauer) to discuss public education (vouchers, charters, and school privatization).  He currently writes a weekly column, “Defending Public Education,” for Black Commentator, an online Journal. 

Email Walter C. Farrell, Jr. at: wcfpr@bellsouth.net

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate. 

Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco (2013-2017). He previously served as Chair of Educational Policy Studies, interim Co-Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, and Director of the AANAPISI (Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution) Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has taught in schools and colleges across the United States and abroad, and has consulted for school districts, organizations, and state and federal agencies. He founded and directed the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education from 2002-2013.

Dr. Kumashiro is a founding member of EDJE (Education Deans for Justice and Equity), CARE-ED (California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education), and CReATE (Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for Transformative Education); is or was recently on the board of directors of the Society of Professors of Education, Turnaround Arts: California, and several book series and journals. He is also an award-winning author and editor of ten books.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Jeannie Oakes is Presidential Professor Emeritus in Educational Equity at UCLA, where she founded UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access; the University of California’s All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity; and Center X, UCLA’s urban teacher preparation program. In 2014, she completed a 6-year term at the Ford Foundation as Director of Educational Opportunity and Scholarship programs worldwide. Oakes’ scholarship examines the effect of social policies on the education of low-income students of color, and it investigates equity-minded reform. Among Oakes’ numerous books, articles, and chapters, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality was named one of the twentieth century’s “most influential” education books; and Becoming Good American Schools: The Struggle for Civic Virtue in Education Reform won the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Outstanding Book Award. She has received other major AERA awards (Early Career, Outstanding Research Article, and Social Justice in Education Research), and holds the Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Educational Research Association: the Multicultural Research Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Ralph David Abernathy Award for Public Service.  Oakes is a Fellow of AERA and a Member of the National Academy of Education. She is currently President-Elect of AERA and will preside over the Association during its 2016 Centennial Year. 

Email Jeannie Oakes at: Oakes@ucla.edu

Susan Ohanian, a long-time public school teacher, is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Atlantic, Parents, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, Language Arts, and American School Board Journal. In 2003, Ohanian received The National Council of Teachers of English's "NCTE Orwell Award" for her outstanding contribution, via her website (http://www.susanohanian.org/index.php), to the critical analysis of public discourse. The website offers information and inspiration on high-stakes standards and testing resistance.

Email Susan Ohanian at: susano@gmavt.net

Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. His interests include the political economy and cultural politics of public school privatization. His work also explains how the privatization movement in education is part of the broader movement to undermine public democratic power and expand global corporate power.

He is the author and editor of numerous books on educational policy and politics including Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, The Edison Schools, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, The Failure of Corporate School Reform, The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, and Toward a New Common School Movement.  His most recent book (2016) is Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education.

Email Kenneth Saltman at: ksaltman@uic.edu 

Janelle Scott is a Professor and the Robert C. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Distinguished Chair in Educational Disparities at the University of California at Berkeley in the Graduate School of Education, African American Studies Department, and Goldman School of Public Policy. She earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of California at Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Before earning her doctorate, she was a teacher in Oakland, California. 

Professor Scott’s research investigates how market-based educational reforms affect democratic accountability and equity in public education. She has explored this research program across several policy strands: 1) the racial politics of public education, 2) the politics of school choice, marketization, and privatization, 3) the politics of research evidence on market-oriented reforms, and, 4) the role of elite and community-based advocacy in shaping public education and research evidence utilization. Her work has appeared in several edited books and journals, including the Peabody Journal of Education, Educational Policy, Qualitative Inquiry, the American Educational Research Journal, and the Harvard Educational Review.

She was awarded a Spencer Dissertation Year Fellowship, and a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2014, she was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Committee on Scholars of Color.  In 2020, she was elected as an AERA Fellow. She is Vice President for Division L (Policy and Politics) of AERA (2019-2022). She is the editor of School choice and diversity: What the evidence says (2005 Teachers College Press), and, with Sonya Horsford and Gary Anderson, author of The Politics of Education in an Era of Inequality: Possibilities for democratic schooling (2018 Routledge). 

Email Janelle T. Scott at: jtscott@berkeley.edu