From journalism to justice

“I am really clear on what matters to me—advocating for students. I’ve stayed true to what I learned at Stanford: if students aren’t learning through the way you teach, then teach in the way that they learn.” Dr. Channa Pitt (nee Cook) PhD ’15

Channa Cook’s relationship with Stanford began with a handwritten letter she composed and addressed to the university when she was in the sixth grade. Four decades later, Dr. Channa Pitt had earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from Stanford.

“I initially thought I wanted to be a journalist,” Channa explained. “I majored in English and spent a summer working at Conde Nast in New York City. I was living my dream. But when I returned to campus the following semester, I took a W.E.B. Du Bois seminar where I wrote a paper about the power of education—and my perspective started to shift.”

Like her prophetic letter in sixth grade, Channa’s seminar assignment was another piece of writing to hint at her future. The fall quarter before the year she was due to graduate, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 rocked the nation and compelled Channa to action. 

“September 11 was so jolting,” Channa said. “I came into my senior year writing about lip gloss and fashion colors, and found myself asking: What can I do with my life that is meaningful?”

Channa found her answer in education and seamlessly transitioned from her undergraduate dorm to graduate housing, joining the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) as a newly aspiring teacher the following year. 

Making a first STEP towards a lifetime of service to education 

During her student teaching placement, Channa was struck that many of the students of color were bused in from neighborhoods outside of the school district, a practice familiar to her, having grown up as a person of color in an affluent Los Angeles suburb where diversity was also lacking. Channa was, again, led by a question. This time: “How are we perpetuating disparities and barriers to access and equity, and how can we challenge that?”

Upon completion of STEP, Channa was recruited to her first teaching job by her former high school government teacher, who had become a principal. Channa spent four years as a teacher and literacy coach in the Los Angeles Unified School District before turning her attention to the pursuit of an education administration credential at Pepperdine University. Shortly after completing her admin credential, and still led by a strong calling to service, Channa and a fellow teaching colleague elected to spend their summer break volunteering in New Orleans as part of the post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

“Here we were, two early-career teachers in New Orleans volunteering, painting walls, but word quickly got around, and people started asking: Are you those two teachers from California with admin credentials? Followed by: Do you want to move to New Orleans and open a charter school?”

And that’s exactly what they did. 

Shortly before the school was due to open, Channa’s partner in the ambitious endeavor had to withdraw. 

Channa persisted. 

Sojourner Truth Academy Charter School officially opened in autumn 2008, with Channa as both co-founder and principal. 

“We were an open-enrollment charter,” Channa explained. “We took anyone that wanted to come, or that other schools wouldn’t take—or had already suspended. The average student age was 16 years old. Fifty percent of the students couldn’t read at all. Twenty percent were affected by homelessness, disabilities, and trauma. Several were refugees. Children from all over the city were in new schools, in new neighborhoods, far from home, having arrived with no records from prior schools. Sometimes, on days students were inexplicably absent, we referenced the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office register of arrests. We had a student arrested for carjacking, another for homicide. We had students involved in gangs, others on house arrest only able to attend school with ankle monitors, needing to maintain a certain distance from each other to avoid automatically summoning parole officers to campus in the middle of the school day. We were open, truly open with non-selective enrollment in a city where other schools were permitted to be selective. There were times when it felt like we were set up to struggle.”

Channa spent three years as principal of Sojourner Truth before the next evolution of her career. As in every other phase of her educational journey, she sought to find and address the sources of the problems that presented themselves and questioned what she could do to help resolve them.

“I wanted to understand. What factors were at play to create the conditions that we were seeing in New Orleans? What was going on in those early years post-Katrina that led to this incredible injustice to students, to the teachers, to those suffering from the most poverty?” 

Elevating impact by returning to Stanford

Channa recognized that despite the transformational experience and growth she and her staff saw with students at Sojourner Truth, her potential to make transformative change lay beyond the daily operations of the school. So, she channeled her resolve and returned to Stanford to pursue her doctorate in the newly created Race, Inequality, and Language in Education (RILE) program within the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Channa’s doctoral program, which she described as a “catharsis” to her immersion in post-Katrina New Orleans, offered a deep exploration of issues of educational opportunity, access, and equity, topics that continue to fuel her passion. 

Today, Channa is the assistant superintendent of educational services at the Sacramento County Office of Education. Her role supports 13 districts and 52 charter schools in navigating the complexities of compliance and accountability, providing evidence-based professional learning, facilitating networks, and hosting communities of practice to foster transformations in mindset, behavior, and skills in support of positive outcomes for students. She has coauthored a dozen research studies and two books, each focused on creating school systems and policies that center the needs of the whole child so that all children, especially those furthest from opportunity, can thrive. 

“I’m blessed to have been in positions that allow me to advocate for students. Teaching and learning is incredibly hard on a good day, yet we expect students to be successful irrespective of the multitude of variables. As educators, we must continually strive to create a cascade of optimal conditions for students and the teachers who are tasked with helping them learn and develop every day. That’s what educational success looks like.”