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Biography

Jessica T. Shiller, Ph.D., is a professor of education in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Professional Development at Towson University in Maryland.  At Towson, she on the Honors College faculty,  and is a regular recipient of grant funds that support university-community partnerships with Baltimore City’s community schools. Outside of the university, she in on the board of the Center for Equity, Leadership and Social Justice in Education at Loyola University Maryland and the Baltimore Educational Research Consortium. Dr. Shiller is the 2018 recipient of the Alan G. Penczek award for her work as a faculty member in the area service learning, and has recently authored  â€œOut of a Crisis Comes Resilience: Community School Coordinators Work Through the Pandemic to Generate Social Capital" in The Urban Review. Her most recent scholarship focuses on community schools and culturally sustaining teaching and school leadership.

Research Interests

Dr. Shiller's teaching and research interests include urban education, school reform, critical and cultural sustaining leadership, community schools, university-community partnerships, and civic education.

Selected Publications

Shiller, J. (2024). The Transformative Capacity of Baltimore’s Community Schools: Limits and Possibilities in a Spatially Unjust Urban Context for Black Communities. Education and Urban Society, 0(0).  

Shiller, J. (2024) Out of a Crisis Comes Resilience: Community School Coordinators Work Through the Pandemic to Generate Social Capital in Baltimore’s Neighborhoods. Urban Review, 56, 419–437.  

Shiller, J. & Teachers Democracy Project (2020). Clients or Partners? The Challenge to engage families in Baltimore’s community schools. Urban Education, 59(1), 358-385.   

Flores-Koulish, S. & Shiller, J.  (2020). Critical Classrooms Matter: Baltimore Teachers’ Pedagogical Response After the Death of Freddie Gray. Education and Urban Society, 52(6) 984 –1007.   

Shiller, J. (2020). Honoring the Treaty: School Leaders' Embrace of Indigenous Concepts to Practice Culturally Sustaining Leadership in Aotearoa. Journal of School Leadership, 30(6), 588-603.  

Selected Grant Work

Spring 2023. National Association Family School Community Engagement Grant. $17,500. Training pre-service teachers in the skills of family and community engagement.

June 2021-June 2022. Abell Foundation. $42,536. Create a culturally responsive tutoring program for middle schoolers employing college student tutors. 

January 2018-December 2024. T Rowe Price. $10,000/annual, $70,000 total. Community school partnership programming.

September 2018-June 2021. Baltimore-Towson University Council (BTU). $90,000. Funded research on community schools partnership work.

Courses Taught at TU

• ILPD 716: Leadership of the Schools
• ILPD 603: School Law and Ethics
• ILPD 797: Internship in School Leadership
• HH 229:  Metropolitan studies

Honors and Awards

• 2018, Campus Compact, Alan G. Penczek Award
• 2013, Phi Delta Kappa, Emerging Leader Award