CTL Profile: Rosemary Knab
CTL Taps NJEA Veteran as Director of Research and Operations
In 2006, Joyce Powell, then president of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), gave Rosemary Knab a call, looking for thoughts on a new nonprofit center that focused on professional development for teachers.
Knab, a three-decade veteran of the NJEA and the union’s Associate Director of Research, liked the idea and noted that while NJEA had conducted professional development in more generic pedagogical topics, there never really had been professional development in math, reading, science, history or other specific content areas.
More, a nonprofit with an independent board could connect effectively with outside organizations in a new way. NJEA knew that launching a 501(c)3 could create an independent space where new voices—voices from the philanthropic, business, higher education and foundation communities—could come to the table to look at new opportunities for teachers.
On September 1, Knab joins that nonprofit, the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning® (CTL®), as Director of Research and Operations. While she has long served as co-creator and trustee for CTL, the move represents Knab’s desire to advance the organization’s teacher-led push for improved STEM outcomes.
“I had been so involved in CTL when I was at NJEA. I was thrilled to be a CTL trustee as well as its secretary treasurer so this move just makes a lot of sense,” Knab said.
As CTL’s new Director of Research and Operations, Knab will document CTL’s work by collecting and analyzing the results of schools using CTL’s flagship programs, the Progressive Science Initiative® (PSI®) and the Progressive Mathematics Initiative® (PMI®).
These programs, Knab said, represent the path that CTL will take to continue its national and international trajectory.
“The education community is watching the work we’re doing very closely,” Knab said, pointing to the leadership of CTL Executive Director Robert Goodman, who initially steered CTL toward its emphasis on physics and STEM curricula.
Knab’s other day-to-day duties will be to assist in planning the expansion of CTL’s work to new markets, to communicate the results of the CTL’s work broadly and in diverse ways, and to assist with operations and accounting.
Moreover, CTL is bringing on new schools and districts so quickly that the organization needs to be able to establish a research database to collect performance data: “We’re at the point now where in order to attract other foundations and other sources of funding we have to be able to demonstrate our curriculum works well, and works well for all kinds of kids from all backgrounds,” Knab said.
The bottom line for Knab, however, is to promote the ideal of teacher leadership. Unions like the NJEA and the NEA have long emphasized the concept, but now, said Knab, “they can point to CTL and say ‘this is what we mean.’ CTL is about defining what teacher leadership really is.”
The work that needs to be done is critical, Knab said, and showing the public real teachers working in a collaborative way to create curricula that both improves their work and boosts student achievement is paramount to CTL’s success:
“We’re no longer an emerging nonprofit. We’re now taking education to new heights.”
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