Tina Kafka

Tina Kafka, a credentialed teacher, curriculum designer, and educational writer, taught in elementary schools for over 14 years before joining the field of adult literacy. An honors graduate of the University of California, San Diego, Tina Kafka went on to obtain her Elementary Teaching Credential. Over the years, she increased her expertise and training by earning specialty certificates in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), Reading, and Crosscultural Language and Academic Development (CLAD-ESL). Teaching multiple grades and subjects at a charter elementary school gave Tina Kafka a broad educational perspective, and she easily adapted to the role of developing and coordinating the curriculum for the entire school, a position that lasted six years. During this time, Ms. Kafka also worked with several educational publishing companies, including the Pearson Teacher Education and Development group, to produce high-quality educational materials. Tina Kafka’s published work during this period includes science curricula for schools in New York and Florida, a social studies assessment project, pre-literacy guidelines for preschool teachers, and fiction and nonfiction reading passages for grades three to five. Tina Kafka’s success as an educational writer and editor led to her becoming an author in the award-winning Hot Topics series published by Lucent Books, an imprint of Gale Cengage Learning. These works of nonfiction for young adults address controversial topics, such as the use of DNA in courtrooms, gay rights, cloning, and genetic engineering. DNA on Trial, the first book in the series, won the 2004 San Diego Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature in the nonfiction category, while Cloning was a 2008 Finalist for the San Diego Book Award for Young Adult Literature in the nonfiction category. Tina Kafka’s most recently published Hot Topics book addresses the issue of poverty. As a basic skills instructor for adults, Tina Kafka teaches such classes as adult basic skills, family literacy, English as a second language, and General Education Development (GED) test preparation. Ms. Kafka currently attends the reading specialist program at Columbia University Teachers College to earn her Master of Arts. A recipient of the highly selective Arthur Zankel Urban Fellowship, Ms. Kafka contributes to the graduate program in a supervisory capacity and also assists as a professional reading specialist at The Heritage School in Harlem. In her free time, Tina