F or more than a decade, America’s Choice has brought top-quality education solutions to bear on New York City’s toughest education challenges. From bringing comprehensive school designs to hundreds of New York City schools to delivering rigorous literacy interventions to every middle school, America’s Choice has been there with topquality materials and curriculum.

Behind all of these great products has been a staff unrivaled for their depth of experience and capacity to support change in schools and classrooms.

Below are profiles of some of the people that make America’s Choice a great partner of New York City Schools:


Jaime Aquino
General Manager, North Region

Jaime Aquino has returned to New York City after serving as Chief Academic Officer for the Denver Public Schools. Dr. Aquino has a long and illustrious career in New York City where he has served as Local Instructional Superintendent for Region Nine, Deputy Executive Director in the Division of Instructional Support, the Director of Bilingual, ESL, Foreign Language and Multicultural Education for Community School District Six , the Director of Mathematics for Community School District Six, and as a bilingual teacher. Aquino also served as Deputy Superintendent in Hartford, Connecticut, and as Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. As an administrator, Aquino has been instrumental in achieving record gains in New York City Region Nine and double-digit growth in Hartford. In 1990, New York State named Aquino Bilingual Teacher of the Year.


Peter P. Heaney Jr.
Superintendent-in-Residence

Peter Heaney currently serves as superintendent-in-residence at America’s Choice. Prior to that, he was appointed by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as superintendent of one of the city’s ten instructional regions. He also served as executive director of the Division of Instructional Support for the New York City Department of Education. He regularly speaks at national conferences about principal leadership in urban schools and how to teach writing and reading effectively. His expertise in instructional leadership comes from his many years on the ground as an elementary school principal, teacher trainer, and classroom teacher.


Sherry P. King
Vice President, Field Services

Sherry King joined America’s Choice as the Director of Field Services in 2005. She currently oversees four regional offices and staff working in partnership with states and districts to help turnaround the performance of generally lowperforming schools. Previously, Dr. King served as superintendent for the Mamaroneck Schools and the Schools in New York. She has been a high school principal, assistant principal, and teacher of English, beginning in 1973 at Scarsdale High School. She was involved with a number of educational movements including the National Center for Education and the Economy and the Coalition of Essential Schools. She is an Annenberg Fellow, a trustee on the Board of Directors for Jobs for the Future, and was a senior researcher for the Chicago Small Schools.


Phil Daro
Senior Fellow

Phil Daro is an education leader in the areas of test development, mathematics curriculum, and staff development programs. He has served as director of The Public Forum on School Accountability, the New Standards Project, the California Mathematics Project, and the American Mathematics Project. He has consulted with the New York City School District, Los Angeles School District, Chicago Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, states of Vermont, Georgia, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and California and others. He has served on a number of boards including: NAEP Validity Committee; RAND Mathematics Education Research Panel; the Board of the Noyce Foundation, College Board Mathematics Framework Committee; ACHIEVE Technical Advisory Group, Mathematics Work Group; Technical Advisory Committee to National Goals Panel for World Class Standards, National Governors Association; Title I Commission organized by Council of Chief State School Officers; Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council; and The Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities.


Sally Hampton
Senior Fellow

Sally Hampton is a Senior Fellow for America’s Choice. Most recently, she was a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Formerly, she was Director of English Language Arts for NCEE and the Deputy Director of Research and Development. She has taught in both urban and rural classrooms, directed a National Writing Project site, and developed a K–12 writing program and the staff development materials to support this it. Among the awards she has received are the National Council of Teachers of English Center of Excellence Award and the National Council of the States for Inservice Education Showcase Award. She guided the development of Literacy Navigator, a powerful literacy intervention.


Ann Borthwick
Senior Fellow

Ann Borthwick has 25 years of experience in working on school improvement in the US and Australia. She has worked with America’s Choice since its inception in program development and delivery. Borthwick began her career teaching in Australia and later worked on state and national initiatives to improve the quality of curriculum and instruction including an overhaul of senior secondary schooling in which she oversaw curriculum development, alignment of standards, instruction and assessment, planning for implementation and professional development. She also led the organization responsible for policy advice to the Australian Government on employment, training, school and higher education. After arriving in the US from Australia in 1994, she took the leading role in standards development for New Standards, a joint initiative of the NCEE and the University of Pittsburgh.

Jeannie Feldman
Project Manager, North Region

Jeannie Feldman has more than 20 years experience in education as a classroom teacher and staff developer. She has been with America’s Choice for nine years, five of which she served as a cluster leader, providing technical assistance and literacy training to schools. She has also written literacy curriculum and developed assessment tools. In her current role as Project Manager, she provides training and onsite professional development to supervisors and oversees literacy training and technical assistance provided to schools. She has taught across many grade levels. In 1997, she was appointed as an Early Childhood Literacy Specialist and Coordinator of Project Read for District 18 in the N.Y.C. Board of Education, for which she organized literacy programs for at-risk students in grades K–3.


Stephanie Fisher
Senior Associate

Since 2003, Stephanie Fisher has been a Senior Associate with America’s Choice supporting secondary schools. She provides onsite professional development in mathematics and leadership to teachers and administrators. She has served as a Senior Program Officer at New Visions for Public Schools, facilitating Superintendent Leadership Networks with 24 of the New York City Board of Education Superintendents. While there, she also supported the development of executive leadership curricula with the New York City Board of Education. From 1996 – 2000, Stephanie served as the Director of the New Standards in Education Project at the University of Pennsylvania. This project engaged 42 districts in the implementation of the New Standards Performance Standards and the New Standards Reference Exam. Her experience as a middle school math teacher and principal of an elementary and middle school were the inspiration for her work. She is co-author with Morton Botel of “The Implementation of Math Problem Solving” and has published articles in ASCD Journal and Educational Leadership.