Stanley L. Johnson Jr, PhD

Stanley L. Johnson, Jr., is Section Editor for Urban Education.  His research focuses on critically investigating highly effective Secondary English teachers and their high achieving African American Male students. As a former high school English teacher and urban school administrator, Johnson is particularly interested in the effective instructional and pedagogical practices of Advanced Placement English teachers who have proven results in helping to close the literacy gap by ensuring that their African American males have access to the language of wider communication and exposure to languages and literacies of power.

Johnson currently serves as a Literacy Consultant in Curriculum and Instructional Services for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Johnson provides consultancy services in language arts, standards based instruction, leadership training for emerging administrators, coaching and training to teachers in their Juvenile Court Schools Program, and he works closely with low-performing schools trying to exit from the School Assistance Intervention Team (SAIT) and Program Improvement (PI) corrective action programs sanctioned by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Johnson also lectures in the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS) and is actively seeking tenured-track faculty positions in English Education and Literacy Studies.

Johnson began his career in education through the Teach for America (TFA) program, a national teaching corps that recruits the nations brightest undergraduates to commit two years of teaching in educationally underserved areas.  He taught for five years at Centennial High School in the Compton, CA, teaching all levels of English/Language Arts and Advanced Placement Language and Composition courses. Johnson was awarded a lateral promotion to Program Coordinator, a district office administrative position, after successfully serving as Centennial’s Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Self-Study Chairperson; completing a clear, cogent, and lucid document that was successfully presented to the California Department of Education and WASC who, in turn, reinstated the schools accreditation in 2004.   In this position, Johnson worked closely with the Associate Superintendent for School Operations and Curriculum and Instruction by helping principal use their school site data effectively to drive their instructional program.  Johnson received his PhD in Urban Schooling from UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.  He also holds a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education from Loyola Marymount University and a Bachelors of Arts in American Literature and Culture with college honors from UCLA.  Johnson is the recipient of many academic distinctions and community service awards.  He is most pleased, though, with being selected as the 2010-2011 Distinguished Teaching Assistant Award recipient for his outstanding teaching of undergraduate students and significant contributions to the UCLA GSE&IS
community.