FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Karen Cheeks
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NCTAF Commissioners DeBose & Duncan-Andrade
Among Great Educators Invited to the White House on
National Teacher Appreciation Day
WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 2, 2016 – The National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF) is pleased to announce that two of its commissioners, Geneviève DeBose and Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, will attend the National Teacher Appreciation Day celebration at the White House on Tuesday, May 3, as President Barack Obama honors the 2016 National Teacher of the Year and recognizes great educators from across the country.
“On behalf of our commissioners, I want to congratulate Jahana Hayes for receiving the 2016 National Teacher of the Year award. She is impacting the lives of students through great teaching, and we salute her,” said Melinda George, president of NCTAF. “In addition, we are thrilled that two of our nation’s great educators are a part of the Commission’s work and that they are being acknowledged, along with their peers, for the major contributions that they all make each day to strengthen teaching and learning.”
DeBose is an educator, artist, and activist who has taught middle school in Los Angeles, Oakland, and the South Bronx for more than a decade. She currently teaches 7th grade English Language Arts at a public middle school in the Bronx. A National Board Certified Teacher, DeBose has been featured in several of Davis Guggenheim’s documentary films on schools and teaching, where she discussed her belief that learning experiences for children should be culturally relevant, student-centered, and interactive. She was a 2011 U.S. Department of Education Washington Teaching Ambassador Fellow and in 2012 was was named one of Education Week‘s “17 Leaders Who Will Shape Education for the Next Generation.” DeBose became a NCTAF Commissioner in 2014.
Duncan-Andrade is an Associate Professor of Raza Studies and Education at San Francisco State University, Co-Founder of the Teaching Excellence Network, and Director of the Educational Equity Initiative at the Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational, and Environmental Design (I-SEEED). He has been a classroom teacher for 22 years, and recently founded the Roses in Concrete Community School in East Oakland, a lab school committed to the development and study of community responsive teaching and teacher training. Duncan-Andrade also lectures around the world about the elements of effective teaching. He has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on the conditions of urban education, urban teacher support and development, and effective pedagogy in urban settings. In 2015, Duncan-Andrade became a NCTAF Commissioner.
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The National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1994 as a bipartisan effort to engage education policymakers and practitioners to address the entrenched national challenge of recruiting, developing, and retaining great teachers in order to ensure that all students have access to quality teaching in schools organized for success. For 20 years, NCTAF has worked to drive and inform the national dialogue about the importance of great teaching, especially in hard-to-staff schools. NCTAF’s research and recommendations inform innovations and improvements in teaching quality nationwide, focus attention on the importance of equitable distribution and retention of teachers, and promote promising practices for the development of teachers’ skills and career pathways. For more information, visit www.nctaf.org. Follow NCTAF on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to NCTAF’s News Digest.