Education Professor Pia Wong has been elected to one of two leadership positions on the statewide Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s Committee on Accreditation (COA).

Wong, chair of Sacramento State’s Department of Teaching Credentials, has served on the COA since 2009. She was elected as a co-chair of the COA with Anna Moore of the Sonoma County Office of Education.

Wong has been an education researcher for more than two decades. She earned both a bachelor’s with honors in Latin American studies and a master's in city planning from UC Berkeley, and a doctorate in international development education from Stanford University. From 2000 to 2008, she was the project director for the Equity Network, an urban school reform and teacher preparation partnership that included 12 professional development schools, five districts, two teachers associations, and Sacramento Area Congregations Together.

She co-edited the book Prioritizing Urban Children, Their Teachers, and Schools Through Professional Development Schools (2009) with Ronald Glass; co-authored Education and Democracy: Paulo Freire, Education Reform and Social Movements (1998) with Maria Pilar O’Cadiz and Carlos Alberto Torres; and has published articles in several journals.

The COA, a statutory committee appointed by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), is charged with making decisions concerning the accreditation of educator preparation programs, determining the comparability of national or alternative program standards with California standards of educator preparation, and reporting on accreditation decisions to the CTC. – Ahmed V. Ortiz