The Reading League’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Project
February 13, 2023
The Reading League (TRL) is honored and fortunate to be contracting with Caldera and Associates Equity Consulting, LLC, as part of a three-year Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Project. CEO Dr. Altheria Caldera is a voracious learner with developing expertise in several areas: culturally relevant pedagogies, antiracist education, education policy, and language and literacy. She is a skilled racial equity leader who continues to grow in her knowledge through reading the word and the world, teaching and mentoring students, and listening to counternarratives of educators and students of color. Altheria demonstrates her commitment to racial equity in education through her work as a university professor at American University and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Altheria is a proud first-generation and HBCU (Stillman College) graduate whose work is rooted in her personal experiences as a Black girl growing up in Alabama. She earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies and graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies at Texas Christian University (TCU) and has published nearly two dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her scholarship focuses on ways educators can advance equity for students of color and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Dr. Caldera and Associates Equity Consulting, LLC, will support TRL as we seek to develop relationships with key mission-aligned organizations that have an intentional focus on supporting students of color. Through these partnerships, TRL will listen to understand how the science of reading movement can grow and shift to ensure more communities of color see themselves in our work.
In January of 2023, Altheria supported TRL staff as they collectively crafted a diversity statement. The last section of the statement reads as follows:
As a leader in our field, The Reading League is committed to furthering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within the science of reading movement itself, because certain communities, particularly communities of color, have not yet seen themselves represented consistently and authentically. By calling ourselves a league, we assert that we are strengthened by the diversity of our perspectives, which will bolster our ability to advance our mission and realize our vision of literacy for all.
We believe that with the help and guidance of Dr. Altheria Caldera and her team, we can help bring that vision of a more diverse league to life.
We look forward to sharing our collective work to advance understanding and further opportunity for evidence-aligned literacy instruction, with a specific focus on students of color through our work with Caldera & Associates Equity Consulting, LLC.
