My passion for education has always extended beyond the classroom. In my first year of teaching, driven by low reading levels, my principal and I successfully submitted a Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration grant. At a BIA school, collaborating with the University of New Mexico (UNM), the University of Northern Colorado, and parents, we improved and expanded our gifted program to serve over 70 students. Finally, with Albuquerque Public Schools, I'm involved in Strengthening Quality in Schools, a New Mexico Public Education Department initiative for school improvement.

School improvement is one area of great concern to me, particularly the urgency of improving our lowest performing schools. Another, related policy area I am interested in is developing effective teachers. With a new definition of professional development from the National Staff Development Council, I hope the time has arrived when we will support teachers in becoming effective. Professional development must become continuous, collaborative, ongoing, and develop the expertise to meet the needs of each student. In December 2009, I'll complete the Education Leadership Graduate program at UNM with an inquiry project on site-based professional development.

Perhaps I changed my mind about becoming a teacher during high school when academia became inaccessible and I lost confidence in myself as a learner. Twenty years after graduation, living on the Spanish land grant of my father's family, escaping the economic and ethnic tensions of the city, I accepted a long-term substitute position in a small Catholic school serving the nearby reservation and Spanish communities. Soon after, I completed an education post-bachelors program and accepted a teaching position in our community elementary school.

This was the beginning of my education in school reform. I had no idea there would be resistance to school improvement. How could anyone not want a better education for children? Reading scores rose as rapidly as resistance to change. Two conversations resonate in my memory. A veteran New Mexican politician, regarding my choice to go into education rather than politics, said, “You made the wrong decision, education is where the dirtiest politics are played out.” The superintendent's words to me were, “You're doing the right thing, keep going, don't let 'them' stop you.” By my fifth year, barely surviving the politics of gifted education, I considered leaving education. Instead, I retreated into an urban classroom until our assistant principal asked me to lead our goal writing team. I became involved in school improvement again.

Today, three new quotes resonate: Secretary Duncan on education, “This is an extraordinary opportunity… it's really a fight for social justice. It's the right thing to do for our children.” President Obama on change, “We are the ones we've been waiting for, we are the change we seek.”and finally, an anonymous quote, “No one of us can be as effective as all of us.” I believe we can make a difference!