Decades of academic experience provide exceptional insight into educators' challenges and how we can help solve them.
This team of extraordinarily accomplished education leaders draws on decades of academic experience to provide a unique perspective on the challenges today’s educators are facing.
Former Superintendent, Horry County Schools, South Carolina
Dr. Elsberry is an experienced education leader and expert. She operates an educational consulting firm and provides executive coaching and professional development related to digital teaching and learning as well as conducting instructional reviews. Prior to joining Achieve3000 as the Executive Director of Blended Learning, she served as Superintendent of Horry County Schools in South Carolina and Talladega County Schools in Alabama. Horry County – a diverse, high-poverty district with over 40,000 students – won national acclaim for its transformation under Dr. Elsberry’s leadership and was rated as one of South Carolina’s highest-performing school districts. As part of her strategic plan, Dr. Elsberry focused on successfully implementing key blended learning strategies: empowering teachers with 21st-century skills and differentiating teaching and learning for all students.
Specialties: blended learning; personalized learning; digital teaching and learning; change leadership; innovation
Professor of Educational Leadership, San Diego State University
Dr. Fisher is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College having been an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is the recipient of an International Reading Association William S. Gray Citation of Merit, an Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference on English Leadership of NCTE, as well as a Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Teacher Education. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design as well as books, such as Visible Learning for Literacy, Building Equity, and Assessment-Capable Visible Learners.
Specialties: school improvement; quality instruction; educational leadership
Former Chief of Teaching & Learning Chicago Public Schools
Ms. Gurley is an accomplished educator and instructional leader, retired from Chicago Public Schools, with nearly 40 years of experience in education. She has served as a teacher, principal, network chief, and central office administrator. Ms. Gurley specializes in building the capacity of school administrators and leadership teams in analyzing data to identify and respond to students’ academic and social needs and interests. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education, a Master of Science in reading, and a Master of Arts in administration and supervision. Ms. Gurley is a National Milken Educator Award recipient.
Specialties: using data to meet students’ needs; parent engagement, team building
President of Successful Practices Network
Mr. McNulty is the President of Successful Practices Network/National Dropout Prevention Center and a senior fellow to the International Center for Leadership in Education, having previously served as its president. Prior to joining the International Center, he was a senior fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he worked with leading educators on improving the nation’s high schools. Mr. McNulty is a past president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and author of It’s Not Us Against Them — Creating the Schools We Need.
An educator since 1973, he has been a teacher, vice principal, principal, and superintendent, as well as Vermont’s education commissioner. Ray is committed to raising performance standards for both teachers and students and to building solid connections between schools and their communities.
Specialties: educational renovation
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Author and Educator
Dr. Muhammad is an award-winning author and international thought leader. He currently serves as the CEO of New Frontier 21 Consulting, a company dedicated to providing cutting-edge professional development to schools all over the world. A former teacher and school administrator, he served as a practitioner for nearly twenty years.
Dr. Muhammad is a leading expert in the areas of school culture and Professional Learning Communities (PLC). He has worked with schools across the globe and in all 50 U.S. states.
Dr. Muhammad’s books include Time for Change: The Four Essential Skills of a Transformational School Leader, Overcoming the Achievement Gap Trap: Liberating Mindsets to Effect Change, The Will to Lead and the Skill to Teach; Transforming Schools at Every Level, and Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division.
Specialties: educational leadership; school culture; professional learning communities
Former Assistant Superintendent, Chula Vista Elementary School District, California
Dr. Nelson is a dedicated instructional leader, expert in the use of technology to improve student outcomes, and passionate advocate for English language learners. During his tenure as the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services at the Chula Vista Elementary School District in California, he oversaw the district’s dramatic improvement in academic performance and high-stakes test scores through the implementation of a student-centered instructional framework and a cloud-based differentiated instruction solution. With four decades of experience in education, Dr. Nelson has also worked as a classroom teacher, ESL instructor, school principal, and lecturer at San Diego State University.
Specialties: accelerating student achievement; Common Core State Standards; leadership coaching
President, MetaMetrics
Dr. Malbert Smith III, Ph.D., is the president of MetaMetrics, an educational measurement and research organization. Together with co-founder and CEO A. Jackson Stenner, Ph.D., Dr. Smith created The Lexile® Framework for Reading; El Sistema Lexile® para Leer, the Spanish-language version of the widely used reading framework; The Lexile® Framework for Writing; and The Quantile® Framework for Mathematics. Focused on fostering literacy and mathematics excellence, Dr. Smith strives to make education measurement useful and actionable in classroom instruction and the home.
Specialties: Lexile Framework; educational measurement
Clinical Professor of Literacy, New York University
Dr. Stahl is a Clinical Professor of Literacy at New York University where she teaches graduate courses in literacy and directs the NYU Literacy Clinic. She taught in public elementary school classrooms for over 25 years. Her research focuses on reading acquisition, struggling readers, and comprehension. Dr. Stahl’s books include Assessment for Reading Instruction (3rd Ed.), Developing Reading Comprehension: Effective Instruction for All Children in Prek-2, Reading Assessment in an RTI Framework, and Reading Research at Work: Foundations of Effective Practice. Her articles have appeared in Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Urban
Education, and the Journal of Literacy Research. She has been the recipient of Harvard’s Jeanne Chall Visiting Researcher Award and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Teaching Excellence Award.
Specialties: reading acquisition, struggling readers, and comprehension
Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, College of Education at Northern Illinois University
Dr. Tonks is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. He researches academic motivation, focusing on reading engagement in children and adolescents. Additional research interests include measuring student motivation, the interplay of culture and motivation, and Japanese culture and education. Dr. Tonks presents regularly at national and international conferences and has co-authored numerous articles and chapters in a variety of academic journals and books. His research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. In addition, he regularly teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on motivation, educational psychology, child and adolescent development, policy, and research methodology.
Specialties: Measuring student motivation, the interplay of culture and motivation, and Japanese culture and education.
