Dr. Mark D. McCarthy

A bit more...

I grew up in eastern Mass with deep family ties to the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. I've traveled a lot since then, but now Chicopee is where I'm raising my family. I love the access to hiking and local farms, and the friends and neighbors we've connected with since 2021.

I hope that I can contribute to better outcomes for students, including those often identified as underserved, like those from low income families, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.

On the Record

I am committed to putting students’ learning first...

I hope that when we strive for excellence for our students, that we do so through the professionalization of teachers, not the enrichment of curriculum publishers.

I hope that teachers and administrators in Chicopee feel appreciated and supported so that we are a district known in the region for high teacher retention and job satisfaction.

I am committed to using my time in this role as an advocate for the promise of what education can be when local governments assert their right to empower teachers...

I believe that the state and federal government are important partners that can support districts, but I have concerns about the ways that politics shape educational policy and reform.

Inherent in the work of teacher education is the assumption that we can make schools and teachers better. The desire for improvement is not an indictment of public schooling... It’s both/and, not either/or: we are doing well and we can get better. That’s a stance taken by the greatest educators I know.

As we crystalize the vision of our district, I am hopeful that creativity and innovation may light our way.

I’d like to see our students attending top-notch schools: we have great people, we need to have great physical spaces.

We need the collective will to invest in our nation, our Commonwealth, and our city.

You should be concerned that the federal government aims to dictate which values we choose to instill in our children as a community.

I’m grateful to serve on the governing body that establishes educational goals and policies for and is held accountable by our community. I choose self-determination because schools shouldn't be driven by national security; our motivation should be loving our kids, however they show up.

Community isn’t a static, dormant connection that lives outside of us. Community is always emerging through the actions of people, and in that way it is aspirational, hopeful. We are always making our community, and I choose compassion.

The community I hope we are has space for nonbinary, queer, and trans people; has room for our neighbors regardless of citizenship status.

My Scholarship

My research follows a few threads: questions about my experiences as a teacher educator, wonderings about children as readers in our institutions, and explorations into and with qualitative research and post qualitative inquiry.

10+

~30x

Cited by others

Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

Hear more about speculative fiction and a critique of schooling:

Hear more about collective motivation to read:

Selected Published Works

Bian, Y., McCarthy, M. D., & Domke, L. (2025). Contesting the “Standard Prosody Myth” through a multilingual lens. Journal of Language, Identity & Education.

Stice, S. K., & McCarthy, M. D. (2024). Fiction-writing and wonder: Documenting a collaborative, creative writing process. Qualitative Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-12-2023-0189

McCarthy, M. D., Domke, L., & Bian, Y. (2023). Multilingual implications for reading prosody assessment. Journal of Literacy Research, 55(3), 346-353. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X231200813

McCarthy, M. D., & Scribner, S. (2023). Reframing K-12 students through asset-based collaboration around assessment practices with prospective teachers. MATSOL Currents, 46(1), 32-39.

McCarthy, M. D., & Stice, S. K. (2023). Speculative futures and “found” artifacts: Using fiction for defamiliarization and analysis. Cultural Studies⇔Critical Methodologies, 23(3), 246-261. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086221139454

McCarthy, M. D. (2023). Imaginary critical friends: Three perspectives on practice. In A. Cameron-Standerford, B. Bergh, & C. U. Edge (Eds.) Pausing at the threshold: Opportunity through, with, and for self-study of teacher education practices.

McCarthy, M. D. (2022). Considering collective motivation to read: A narrative, inquiry. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 18(2).

McCarthy, M. D. (2021). The paradox of authentic relationships in service-learning involving prospective teachers. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 13(2), 4-15. DOI: 10.54656/pofn6589

McCarthy, M. D. (2020). Othering authors in the name of authenticity: Critiquing colonialism with The Arab of the Future. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, 58(4), 22-30. DOI: 10.1353/bkb.2020.0066

McCarthy, M. D. (2018). Critically teaching criticality?: Modeling social and pedagogical inquiry with literary texts. Studying Teacher Education, 14(2), 174-193. DOI: 10.1080/17425964.2018.1449103

McCarthy, M. D., Apol, L., & Roue, B. (2018). “But I’ve never been to Lebanon...” and other reflections on unrelatable texts. WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom, V(4), 6-12.