Leslie W. Grant is an associate professor in educational policy, planning and leadership in the William & Mary School of Education. Her research interests focus on classroom-based assessments and international comparisons of teaching and learning. She is involved in several research projects, including international comparative case studies of award-winning teachers in the United States and China and the efficacy of development assessment literacy in pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and educational leaders. She served as the President for the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness (CREATE) and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) which serves over 150,000 educators across the globe. Dr. Grant frequently works with schools and school districts, both within the United States and internationally, and presents at international, national, and state level conferences in the areas of classroom-based assessments, the use of data to improve student learning, and cross-cultural comparisons of effective teaching practices. She received her doctoral degree from William & Mary.
James H. Stronge, Ph.D., is the Heritage Professor in the Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership Area at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. His research interests include policy and practice related to teacher quality, and teacher and administrator evaluation. He has worked with numerous school districts and other educational organizations to design and implement evaluation systems for teachers, administrators, and support personnel. His work on effective teachers focuses on how to identify effective teachers and how to enhance teacher effectiveness. Dr. Stronge has presented his research at conferences such as American Educational Research Association and Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, conducted workshops for national and state organizations, and worked with local school districts. He has been a teacher, counselor, and district-level administrator. His doctorate is in the area of educational administration and planning from the University of Alabama.
Xianxuan Xu received her doctorate from the College of William and Mary’s Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership Program. She worked with international, state and regional education agencies as well as individual school districts as a consultant. Her research interests are teacher effectiveness, professional development, teacher and principal evaluation. She is also particularly interested in researching the relationship between culture and educational issues such as teaching, learning, and leadership. Her research studies were published in scholarly journals, such as Asia Pacific Education Review, Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, Creativity Research Journal, and Educational Management, Administration & Leadership. She has presented findings of her research at various national conferences, including American Educational Research Association, University Council for Educational Administration, and National Evaluation Institute. She is also the contributing author to a series of books on teacher effectiveness published by Solution Tree in 2015-2017 and What Makes a World-Class School and How We Can Get There published by ASCD in 2017. Currently, Dr. Xu is working as the Decision Analytics Researcher at the Virginia Department of Education.