At InformEd, we believe that an essential ingredient to our success is our multidisciplinary approach that is grounded by our common commitment to build a community of data-driven educators.

Our experience, which includes key areas like classroom teaching, research and evaluation, child development, school administration, and finance, brings our clients the benefit of top-notch analysis and guidance from people who have been there.

Headquartered in the Philadelphia area, our consultants reside in various locations, including the New York, Chicago, and Phoenix metropolitan areas. We provide services nationwide.

ALLISON (CROMEY) CREAN, Ph.D.
Executive Director, CEO

Allison Crean has a diverse background as a consultant, researcher, evaluator, and practitioner in education and child/developmental psychology. As the founder and Executive Director of Informed Educators Consulting Group, LLC, Allison currently provides consultation to educators and evaluators in the areas of data-driven decision-making in schools, continuous improvement processes, and educational assessment and measurement. Allison has published and presented on these issues for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners throughout the nation.

Prior to her work as a consultant, Allison was the Program Director for Research for the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory’s Center for Data Systems and Development. Allison was a key force in the Lab’s research of data-driven decision-making in schools, districts, states, and throughout the mid-west region. To facilitate this work, she formed partnerships with state and local education agencies as well as other R&D organizations. Allison also provided professional development to federal, district, and school-level educators to integrate data-driven decision-making into school improvement processes. In addition, Allison worked as an evaluator at NCREL for a variety of initiatives, including the evaluation of the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project’s Technology Initiative.

Allison has also worked as an administrator and counselor for the City Colleges of Chicago, has taught in special education programs for emotionally disturbed youths, and has extensive experience providing psychological diagnostic assessment and treatment services to children and families. Allison is bilingual (English/Spanish) and skilled in quantitative data analysis. She has her Ph.D. in Psychology from the Institute of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology. There, she designed and directed programmatic research studying the impact of multiage programming on the cognitive and social development of young children. Before this, Allison worked in corporate settings working as a buyer for a nationally distributed retail catalog and as a participant in the Executive Training Program for Macy’s Northeast. Allison has a B.A. in both Psychology and Spanish from Lafayette College, where she was awarded the Frank Kline Baker Prize in Spanish.

Allison resides in Concord, New Hampshire.

Links to publications by Allison (Cromey) Crean, Ph.D.:

Data Retreats: A Conduit for Change in Schools (2001) http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/ccvi/pub/newsletter/v6n1_Spr01.pdf

Using Student Assessment Data: What Can We Learn from Schools? (2000) http://www.ncrel.org/policy/pubs/pdfs/pivol6.pdf

Teachers and Students as Action Researchers: Using Data Daily (2000) http://www.ncrel.org/info/nlp/lpsu00/resrch.htm

An Exploratory Analysis of School-Based Student Assessment Systems (2000) http://www.ncrel.org/re/eval/mi/analysis.htm

Data Driven School Improvement (2003) 
Online course created for BIA/OIEP educators in collaboration
with the University of Kansas e-learning laboratory.
http://elearndesign.org/datadriven/
(username=preview, password=previewonly).

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ANNE LACROCE, CFO
Education Consultant, CPA

Anne Lacroce has a unique background as an educator and a Certified Public Accountant, affording her a keen analytical perspective to the business of educating children. As an educator, Anne has bridged her expertise in financial analysis, auditing, professional development, and technology with the needs of her teaching colleagues and students. At Informed Educators Consulting Group, Anne has developed programs to help schools and districts allocate resources to align with and support the achievement of school improvement goals.

Prior to joining Informed Educators Consulting Group, Anne taught Business and Computer Science courses at River Dell Regional High School in Oradell, NJ and at Bound Brook Junior and Senior High School in Bound Brook, NJ. As a member of River Dells technology committee, Anne helped design and conduct an evaluation of student literacy with various forms of technology, then used the results to refine the curriculum from middle to high school. She also helped author a multi-year technology improvement plan. Anne has designed and provided professional development for teachers and administrators related to effective uses of technology in education. In order to strengthen the Business Program at Bound Brook, Anne introduced and developed the curriculum for three new courses (Accounting, Economics and Personal Financial Management).

Prior to teaching, Anne worked as a Certified Public Accountant for Colgate-Palmolive in New York City. Her activities included preparing financial statements, analyzing worldwide sales growth, evaluating and implementing new accounting standards, and researching and resolving technical accounting issues. Anne provided technical accounting assistance and training to accounting personnel in Latin American and African subsidiaries. In addition she served as controller of a Mexican subsidiary for three months.

Upon graduating form Lafayette College with a B.A. in Business and Economics, a minor in Computer Science, and a concentration in Psychology, Anne began her career as an auditor for Deloitte and Touche. She audited publicly and privately held retail and manufacturing companies while supervising, training, and evaluating audit staff. She also instructed numerous continuing education classes.

Anne resides in Gillette, NJ.

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LYDIA S. WHITEY, M.Ed.
Education Consultant

Lydia Whitey has 29 years of experience as an educator and professional development provider. At Informed Educators Consulting Group, Lydia has mentored numerous schools through the school improvement process. She has also developed programs for educators and parents to continuously monitor student achievement with formative assessments.

Prior to joining Informed Educators Consulting Group, Lydia worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Indian Education Programs in Arizona as an Education Specialist for school reform. During that time she assisted over twenty schools in the development and implementation of a standards-based curriculum. In addition, she introduced and promoted innovative methodologies for language arts instruction. Lydia trained teachers at school sites as well as national conferences to implement classroom-based student assessment systems.

In her work, Lydia emphasized the value and importance of assessment data. She provided teachers and administrators with the knowledge required to interpret student assessment reports and emphasized the implications of the data for instruction. Lydia conducted regional training sessions focused on reading and writing strategies and curriculum expectations. She also provided trainings for administrators in all aspects of the academic program including processes for teacher evaluation.

Prior to this experience, Lydia worked in the Washington Elementary School District in Phoenix. She taught kindergarten and fourth through eighth grades and also served as a certified school librarian for two years. Lydia has her B.A. in Elementary Education and School Library Science from Arizona State University and a Master's degree in Education, Diverse Learner, from University of Phoenix.

Lydia resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

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SHARON PARK, M.A.
Education Consultant

Sharon Park brings a variety of classroom experiences to the Informed Educators Consulting Group. She has had the opportunity to teach in Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, California and with International Schools in Barranquilla, Colombia, South America.  During her 23 years of teaching, she has taught at the elementary, middle and high school levels as well as conducting staff development classes at the district level. Sharon has experienced the challenges of teaching at rural, suburban, and urban schools which has given her a good understanding of how the role of a classroom teacher is affected by the demographics of the school. Before school assessments were available to the classroom teacher, Sharon learned early in her career the importance of using teacher prepared assessments to dictate her teaching.  During these various experiences she has taught in both successful schools as well as program improvement schools, and has worked on school data teams to assess and interpret school data as it applies to the curriculum and school planning.

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