Gloria Ladson-Billings is the Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin. She is credited with coining the term "culturally responsive pedagogy," and is one of the leaders in the field of culturally relevant teaching. Her book, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, offers a close look at the qualities to be found in teachers whose African American students achieve academic success. She is a past president of the American Educational Research Association. Among her accomplishments as AERA president was a presidential address that aimed to redefine the "achievement gap" as "educational debt" - highlighting the social, political and economic factors that have disproportionately affected children of color in our schools. Ladson-Billings has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education and has been a senior fellow in urban education of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
