Early Literacy Advisory Committee
Early Literacy: Advisory Committee
Composed of national experts in early literacy and representatives from McKnight's board and staff, the advisory committee provides oversight and funding recommendations to the Education and Learning program.
Eugene García is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Professor and Vice President for Education Partnerships at ASU from 2006-2011 and as Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education from 2002-2006. He joined ASU from the University of California, Berkeley where he was Professor and Dean of The Graduate School of Education (1995-2001). He has served as an elected member of a local school board and a Senior Officer in the U.S. Department of Education. He has published extensively in areas of early learning, bilingual development, and equal educational opportunity. His most recent books include Teaching and Learning in Two Languages (2005); Early Education of Dual Language Learners (2010), edited with E. Frede; and, Cognition, Bilingualism and Education (2011) with Jose Nanez.
Kristie Kauerz is a research scientist at the University of Washington (UW) and program director for PreK-3rd Education, a collaborative initiative of UW and Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Kristie specializes in bridging policy, research, and practice. She focuses primarily on early care and education and elementary school reform, with particular interest in state-level policy. Kristie's expertise is based in her work with more than 40 states and dozens of school districts on issues related to P-3 (pre-natal through 3rd grade). Kristie's experience includes work at the state level, as an early childhood and P-3 policy advisor, for two former Colorado governors – Bill Ritter, Jr. and Roy Romer; at the national level, as program director for early learning at Education Commission of the States; and in academia at the National Center for Children and Families (Teachers College) and at the Center for Human Investment Policy (University of Colorado-Denver). She has authored and co-authored numerous articles, book chapters, and reports on topics ranging from state kindergarten policies to early childhood governance to P-3 policy alignment. She co-authored Washington State's Early Learning and Development Benchmarks, a book on improving the early care and education teaching workforce, and is co-editor of a forthcoming volume, Early Childhood Systems: Transforming Early Learning, to be published by TC Press in January 2012. Kristie is a proud graduate of Colorado College, American University, and Teachers College at Columbia University.
Kent Pekel is an educator who has worked at the school, district, state, federal and university levels. He is currently the founding Executive Director of the University of Minnesota's College Readiness Consortium, a new organization that leverages the resources of the university to increase the number and diversity of Minnesota students who graduate from high school with the knowledge, skills and habits for success in college and other forms of postsecondary education.
From 2000-2005, Pekel was Chief-of-Staff to Superintendent Patricia Harvey and, later, Executive Director of Research and Development in the Saint Paul Public Schools. During that period, the proportion of Saint Paul students in the benchmark grades of three and five who scored proficient or above on state tests increased from approximately 1/3 to 2/3 in both reading and mathematics. During the same period, four-year high school graduation rates increased from 57.4% to 65.9%. From 1995-2000, Pekel held several senior staff-level positions in the Clinton Administration, including White House Fellow assigned to the Director of Central Intelligence, Special Advisor to the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Special Assistant to the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education. Prior to his time in Washington, Pekel taught at the high school level in Minnesota and at the college level in China. Pekel writes and speaks frequently on educational issues in Minnesota and across the United States. He also serves on the boards of the Minnesota Children's Museum, the Minnesota Council on Economic Education, Junior Achievement and the Saint Paul Public Schools Foundation. He holds a B.A in East Asian Studies from Yale University, a Master's in Education from Harvard and is completing his doctorate in education at the University of Minnesota.
Noa Staryk joined McKnight's board in 1991 and served as board chair from 1999 to 2004. Noa graduated in 1991 from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she earned a B.A. in community health. Noa's experience includes volunteering full-time at a women's center in Minneapolis and interning as a child protection worker for the State of Illinois. Since 2002, Noa has lived in Minneapolis with her husband, Ted Staryk (board member since 2004).
Ruby Takanishi is president of the Foundation for Child Development in New York City. Her long-term concern is how research on children's development can inform public policy and programs. Dr. Takanishi started as an assistant professor at UCLA in the Graduate School of Education. She was Founding Executive Director of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences in 1982, and director of the Office of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association from 1984-1986. Takanishi was executive director of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, an operating program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, from 1986-1996. She was assistant director for Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 1996.
In 1998, she received the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy Award from the American Psychological Association. Her colleagues honored her with The Fred Rogers Leadership Award in Philanthropy for Child, Youth and Families in 2004. Takanishi served on several boards, including the Council on Foundations, Grantmakers for Children, Youth, and Families, Grantmakers for Education, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the Advisory Panel on Public Issues of The Advertising Council, Inc., National Advisory Committee for The National Children's Study, and the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Health Care Quality and Research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Takanishi was educated in Hawaii's public schools, and earned her B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Vallay Varro is founding executive director of MinnCAN. Varro — a mom, educator, and community leader — comes to MinnCAN after serving five years as education policy director for St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman and as school board director for the St. Paul Public Schools. Varro and her family immigrated to the United States over 30 years ago, and she has spent her entire career working to improve education for all children. As education policy director for Coleman, Varro developed the mayor's education policy agenda and raised over $22 million dollars of public and private funds to support education programs. She worked to secure public and private support for afterschool programs, college access programs, and circulator buses to improve access to resources for youth in St. Paul. Prior to joining the city in 2006, Varro served as a program manager at the Minnesota Literacy Council, director of the AmeriCorps Minnesota Reading Corps, and as a classroom teacher at the University of Saint Catherine Pre-K Education Center. She holds a masters degree in education from the University of Minnesota.
Kate Wolford became president of The McKnight Foundation in December 2006. Prior to joining McKnight, Wolford spent 13 years as president of Lutheran World Relief. Previously, she established Church World Service's Caribbean regional office for disaster response and community-based development, and worked with Servicio Social de Iglesias Dominicanas. Wolford has a B.A. in history from Gettysburg College, an M.A. in public policy from the University of Chicago, and an M.A. in religious studies from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Wolford serves on the board of directors of the Minnesota Council on Foundations and Living Cities.