Xiania Foster, MA

Senior Consultant

Xiania Foster has served in many roles in her career in education. Over the last two decades, she has been a teacher, program designer, convener, and facilitator. She entered the field of education as an elementary school teacher because of her commitment to social justice. After teaching, she managed and expanded youth programming in the City of Newark under the mayoral leadership of Cory Booker. As a Policy Analyst, she oversaw the redesign of a citywide scholarship and provided over a half-million dollars in funding to hundreds of first-generation, college-bound students. Later in her career, she focused on increasing opportunity as a part of the core team designing and implementing a multi-year, multi-million dollar early literacy initiative. Through her work at Teaching Matters, Ms. Foster increased the use of best practices in historically under-resourced schools in the Bronx. Recently, she helped the Paterson Education Fund launch a summer reading grant program. The focus of the initiative is to combat summer learning loss by increasing essential learning activities through free programs, enriching experiences, and giving away beautiful picture books. In addition to serving as a Senior Consultant at Marga, Inc., she teaches graduate students at the Bank Street College of Education. Ms. Foster holds a B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College, an M.A. in Education in Teaching Literacy and General Education from Bank Street College of Education, and an M.A. in Building Leadership from Columbia University’s Teachers College.