I am Cornelius Vanderbilt chair of education and professor of education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. In April 2022, I received the prestigious Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Professor Award, one of Vanderbilt University’s highest honors. My research, teaching, and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education. My research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools.

I am president of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world and am an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.

My work has appeared in numerous journals, and I have published seven books. My most recent are Start Where You Are but Don’t Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching In Today’s Classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2010 and 2020, Second Edition), Rac(e)ing to Class: Confronting Poverty and Race in Schools and Classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and These Kids Are Out of Control: Why We Must Reimagine Classroom Management for Equity (Corwin Press, 2018).