57th Annual Conference Speakers

2025 Opening Keynote 

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Playing the Numbers

Decades of mathematics assessment reveal disparities in performance among various groups of students. These disparities are neither normal nor immutable. Thirty years of asset based approaches to pedagogy suggest that we have the ability to reverse this trend and ensure all students develop the kind of mathematical literacy that is necessary in the 21st century.

We are excited to share that our opening keynote speaker will be Gloria Ladson-Billings!

Gloria Ladson-Billings is Professor Emerita and former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor in Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the Immediate Past President of the National Academy of Education, the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association, a 2020-2021 Hagler Institute Fellow at Texas A&M University, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the British Academy. A leading scholar in education, her research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students and Critical Race Theory applications to education.

She is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and other influential works, with over 100 journal articles and book chapters.

She is the former editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a member of several editorial boards. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards, including the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson outstanding research award. She is the 2015 winner of the American Educational Research Association Social Justice in Education Award. She was named the 2012 winner of the Brock International Prize in Education.

She holds honorary degrees from Umeå University (Umeå Sweden), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain), the Erickson Institute (Chicago), and Morgan State University (Baltimore). She is a 2018 recipient of the AERA Distinguished Research Award, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018.

2025 Closing Keynote

Deborah Peart Crayton

Born a Mather!: Disrupting the Idea that Math is Optional

Given our inborn affinity for patterns, shapes, and number sense in general, math more than the other subjects should be at the heart of our academic identities, but it is quite the opposite for many students. Unfortunately, school is often the place where math dreams come to die. Children are often forced to abandon sense-making in exchange for rules and procedures, and mathematics becomes an unfamiliar thing that is not for everyone. Curiosity, creativity, and joy should be at the center of mathematics in education. Children are counting on us to write the counter narrative about what it means to be “good at math.” It is time for math dreams to flourish and every student to confidently embrace the idea that they are Born Mathers!

We are excited to share that our closing speaker will be Deborah Peart Crayton, CEO of My Mathematical Mind.

Deborah Peart Crayton is the founder and CEO of My Mathematical Mind. She speaks on various topics related to math identity, pedagogical content knowledge, and literacy connections to mathematics. Deborah advocates for a mindful approach to teaching mathematics to address math anxiety, build confidence, and support the development of positive math identities. She has dedicated her career and doctoral studies to supporting educators with innovative teaching strategies that allow students to be curious problem-solvers and see themselves as assets to the learning community. Deborah believes all children deserve high-quality instruction and the opportunity to become competent readers, writers, and mathers.