My story begins as a member of a musical family. Dad sang and played the upright bass in night clubs. Mom sang, played the piano, and directed a choir at church. My sister sang always, starting as a young child and after college, moved to New York and became a member of the Houston Opera Company. She toured the world performing the role of Serena in the folk-opera Porgy and Bess. I played the piano and was the accompanist for the singers while we all were in Detroit and sang a little with groups.
My professional career began as a music teacher in the Detroit Public Schools after earning both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Music Education. I taught elementary school for about three years, but then was assigned to a junior high school. I really loved working with children at that level as they were able to do really high-quality work. However, after eight more years of teaching, I became a little restless and looked for challenges outside of the classroom.
I found a challenge at the Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory that worked in the area of in-service teacher training. While working there, I became interested in trying to identify and describe exactly what skills successful teachers used in working with children, and how to document those skills so others could learn them. This led me to work with the evaluators on staff, while also working as an in-service teacher trainer. I was encouraged to apply to the University of Michigan’s doctoral program in Psychological Foundations of Education and was accepted, much to my surprise – after all, my Master’s degree was in Music Education!
I started my doctoral program at Michigan but finished it at the University of Washington in Seattle earning a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in measurement. My idea was to use hard statistics to balance my biases toward the poor and/or black children who were to be the subjects of the research I was interested in conducting. This degree facilitated my work at the Far West Regional Educational Laboratory, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Educational Testing Service, Research and Evaluation Associates, and Westat. I worked at Westat for almost 20 years as a Senior Research Associate and eventually as the Associate Director of Education Studies before retiring in 2008.
Now, I am proud to be the President of BWW Enterprises LLC.