School of Education

Education

• Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Supervision - K-12 Educational Administration, University of Mississippi
• M.S.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Administration, Arkansas State University
• B.A. in Public Policy and English - Education Policy, University of Mississippi
  
  

Academic interests

• Critical Education Policy in the New South
• Teacher and Leader Diversity (impact on student learning/achievement)
• Teacher Leadership (impact on teacher recruitment and retention)
• College Access and Persistence (students of color and students with disabilities)
• School/ District Turnaround (rural school turnaround efforts/ leader dispositions)
• Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems (effective, non-bias measures of teacher
  effectiveness)
• Science of Reading (Closing reading gaps utilizing the science of reading)
• School & District Performance & Accountability
  
  

Recent publications

• Ellis, A., & Moss, P. (2024). Past, present, and future: Black male faculty mental health crisis at predominantly White institutions. New Directions for Student Services, Special Issue.
• Moss, P. (2024). Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around: A principal’s fight against traditional educator pathways to staff an underperforming school in the rural South. Journal of Educational Impact, 1(1), 35-46. https://journal.eduimpact.net/index.php/jei/article/view/4
• Moss, P. (2024, August 6). A teacher in the White House: What Harris-Walz could mean for education. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-a-teacher-in-the-white-house-what-harris-walz-could-mean-for-education/2024/08
• Rogers, J. & Moss, P. (June 2024). The right-to-read discussion guide. (Discussion Guide). The Right to Read Film: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/661ff09dacee5b5650791fc0/t/6683ff77e4882b17a006061d/1719926732189/THE+RIGHT+TO+READ-NACCP-DISCUSSION-GUIDE.pdf
• Manchanda, S., Bristol, T., & Moss, P., (2023) Getting black men to the blackboard: factors that
  promote black mens’ entry into teaching. Equity and Excellence Journal.
• Moss, P. C. (2023). Teacher pay and compensation. In T. Flowers (Ed.). The Urban Education
  Source Book. Cambridge, Ma. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Moss, P. C. (2023). The case for high-quality after-school programs in Title I schools. In T.
  Flowers (Ed.). The Urban Education Source Book: Key Issues. Cambridge, Ma. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Bio

Prior to joining VCU School of Education, Dr. Moss served as a Senior Professorial Lecturer of Education Policy and Leadership, and served as Acting-Director of the Education Policy and Leadership Graduate Program at American University. He has also served as a Senior Policy Adviser to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and as the congressional liaison to the U.S. Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys. Dr. Moss has served as an Education Policy Fellow for Education Leaders of Color and the National Association for the Advanced of Colored People (NAACP) where he provided strategic and policy advice across a range of national education issues for members, including early childhood, K-12, post-secondary, higher education, career, technical education, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), statewide literacy policies, teacher diversity, and workforce development. Notably, he led the filing of the historic American Teacher Act to establish a federal grant program to incentivize states to raise teacher salaries. In addition, his research focuses on building school and district leaders’ capacity to diversify the educator workforce and improve efforts to increase teacher recruitment and retention. He has worked extensively to ensure states have the infrastructure to support strong literacy outcomes for all children. Dr. Moss has more than twelve years of experience working in education and education policy from English teacher, policy maker and principal. His work in moving an underperforming middle school from an F to C in two years led him to become the Bureau Director of Educator Effectiveness and Talent Acquisition at the Mississippi Department of Education. Dr. Moss led the design and launch of the nation’s first state-run teacher residency program with a $4.5M Kellogg Foundation Grant to address the state’s teacher shortage and increase the diversity of the educator workforce in Mississippi.

Dr. Moss is also an affiliate faculty member at Douglas S. Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Curriculum Vitae