Alumni Spotlight - Laura Gonzalez '98

LAURA GONZALEZ '98 – ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Laura Gonzalez '98 graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Psychology and University of San Francisco with an MA in Nonprofit Administration. Her career has focused on education reform for the last 10 years, most recently working for Teachscape, Inc., a for-profit company dedicated to the improvement of instruction and development of school leadership by delivering the content and technology tools needed to drive measurable school improvement. In partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Teachscape, Laura is spearheading the Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET), which is a national research initiative capturing over 26,000 hours of instructional practice that will inform the development of teaching effectiveness rubrics. Laura is responsible for working directly with six urban school districts to ensure implementation of this project in 400 different schools. Laura has also worked for various other children's organizations, such as Breakthrough Collaborative, Stupski Foundation, San Francisco School Volunteers, and Save The Children.

Laura lives in San Francisco with her fiancé, Ross. When she is not working, Laura is typically playing soccer and running through Golden Gate Park with her dog, Dublin.

1. What motivated you to pursue a career in education reform?

After working for several years in various nonprofits that served disadvantaged children (foster care, drug rehabilitation, the juvenile court systems, etc.), I realized that the one thing that could possibly support them and create new opportunities for success was the public education system; however, the more I became involved with education as a potential solution, the more I realized that this system was failing them as well. I deeply believe that if this system can be fixed in a manner that delivers equitable resources and services to children across this country we would not only see gains in student achievement, but we would also observe a ripple effect of positive outcomes across all layers of our society.

2. What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Accomplishing a goal (improving education) that at one point I felt was absolutely impossible.

4. How do you choose which teachers to evaluate through this program, and how do they feel about it?

The teachers enroll voluntarily. There is a qualification process, but it has to do with the way the study is designed and nothing to do with the teacher's resume or qualifications. We essentially have to have three teachers who teach the same subject and same grade levels at each school in order to maintain the studies validity. If a teacher isn't chosen to participate, it's usually because we could not make the "teacher trifecta" work.

In this study we managed to accept almost 3500 teachers across six urban districts: Denver, Dallas, Memphis, Tampa, Charlotte, and New York City.

3. You have accomplished so much already! What do you see yourself doing in ten years?

I would like to continue my work in the education sector - still quite a bit of work to be done there, although I wish it weren't the case. I love working in grassroots organizations and seeing them break-through to the next level of operational and organizational effectiveness, so hopefully I will be in the business of doing that for various education organizations that have some powerful ideas about how to create real and lasting social impact.

4. What is your favorite memory of Cate?

So many that I don't know where to start. Every single one includes my best girlfriends who are still a huge part of my life: Kate MacDonald, Joanna McCreary, Jenny Hindelang, Sarah Ray and so many others. Each are coming with me to Hawaii in October for my wedding. Most of my memories consist of me and my friends just hanging out on Senior Lawn for hours and hours, including different groups of kids as the night wore on. For some reason that never got boring.