Bartoli, Jill Sunday 1945–

PERSONAL: Born May 17, 1945, in Carlisle, PA; daughter of Harvey (a farmer and restaurant owner) and Helen (a restaurant owner; maiden name, Hershey) Sunday; married James Bartoli (in produce business), June 26, 1971; children: David, Daniel, Stephen, Catherine, Patrick. Education: University of Kentucky, B.A., 1966, M.A., 1967; Shippensburg University, M.Ed., 1977; University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1986. Politics: Democrat. Religion: "Presbyterian and Catholic."

ADDRESSES: Home—316 Garland Dr., Carlisle, PA 17013. Office—Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA 17022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: High school teacher of English, speech, and creative writing, 1969–73; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, lecturer, 1986–90, postdoctoral research associate, 1989–90; Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, associate professor of education and social work, 1989–. Governor's Institute for Language Arts Teachers, faculty member, 1998–2000. Member of local Social Justice Coalition, 1989–2001, and Democratic Committee, 2002–; Faith and Social Responsibility Interfaith Study Group, member, 2000–02.

MEMBER: International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, National Coalition of Education Activists, American Educational Research Association, National Association for the Education of Young Children, National Council for the Social Studies, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (member of executive board, 2000–03), Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English, Keystone State Reading Association, Capital Area Association for the Education of Young Children, Lancaster-Lebanon Reading Council, Kappa Delta Pi (chapter founder; counselor, 1992–2003), Phi Delta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grants from U.S. Department of Education, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and Pennsylvania Literacy Corps.

WRITINGS:

Exploring the Process of Reading/Learning Disability Labeling: An Ecological Systems Approach, University Microfilms International (Ann Arbor, MI), 1986.

(With Morton Botel) Reading/Learning Disabilities: An Ecological Approach, Teachers College Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Unequal Opportunity: Learning to Read in the USA, Teachers College Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Celebrating City Teachers: How to Make a Difference in Urban Schools, Heinemann (Portsmouth, NH), 2001.

Contributor to books, including International Annual of Oral History edited by R. Grele, Greenwood Press (New York, NY), 1992. Contributor to academic journals, including Language Arts, Journal of Reading, and Journal of Learning Disabilities.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on transforming an urban school district.

SIDELIGHTS: Jill Sunday Bartoli told CA: "What continues to inspire me to write are my continuing questions about how to make learning successful for all children and youth, and particularly for those who have historically been discouraged or failed by our schools in the United States.

"For the past twenty years I have been reading, researching, and writing about students' reading and learning abilities and disabilities, trying to understand better the multitude of factors that prevent or support their learning. In the 1980s I visited the classrooms, homes, and communities of students labeled as reading- and learning-disabled, which resulted in several articles and the book Reading/Learning Disabilities: An Ecological Approach.

"Questions from that research about the differing opportunities for students to learn led me to a larger study in the early 1990s, comparing student learning and non-learning in suburban and urban schools, resulting in the book Unequal Opportunity: Learning to Read in the USA. The complex social and racial justice issues that I encountered in urban schools, along with the enormous challenges that they present for urban teachers, parents, and students, led me to explore several successful urban schools in Philadelphia and New York City. Celebrating City Teachers: How to Make a Difference in Urban Schools was born of this exploration.

"My current research extends the successful urban school study to an entire urban school district working toward transformational change. This school district has the poorest student population in the state, the lowest test scores, and highly segregated schools. Again, the challenges for teachers, administrators, parents, and students are enormous; and their collaborative efforts are complex and inspiring enough to keep me observing, thinking, and writing for the next decade.

"Some of the authors who have inspired, influenced, and motivated my work include Seymour Sarason, Jonathan Kozol, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Luis Moll, Beverley Tatum, Paul Loeb, Michelle Fine, Luis Rodriguez, Bill Ayers, Morton Botel, Asa Hilliard, and Paulo Freire."