David is founder of Upswing Labs and a former middle school ELA teacher in South Central Los Angeles.
At the National Governors Association, he worked on the team that developed the Common Core State Standards and led the nation’s largest effort to expand AP classes for low-income and minority students. David also served as Deputy Secretary of Education in New York.
Upswing Labs conducts research to better understand how and why districts and states are improving literacy. This includes case studies, evaluations of tutoring programs, and eventually building a deeper understanding of how some struggling students become successful readers.
We are creating the Literacy Excellence Network (LENS), a group of like-minded schools and districts committed to steadily raising reading and writing achievement and learning from each other.
Our ultimate purpose is to foster what Maryanne Wolf calls “deep reading”, to cultivate students who can evaluate arguments, reason inferentially, understand others’ perspectives, and stay immersed in great stories.
