Program

Now is the time for innovation — as more districts fall into Program Improvement, it becomes clear that “more of the same” will not result in improvement for students, and districts need to look for new solutions to reach their achievement goals. SI&A's Cultivating Success Summit connected school leaders with those who assess their districts and those who provide prudent business solutions.

• About Our Presenters
• Panels

About Our Presenters

• Jim Shelton
• Dr. Anthony Muhammad
• Kati Haycock
• Leigh Manasevit
• Ted Mitchell
• Uri Treisman
• Jack O'Connell

Jim Shelton
Assistant Secretary, US Department of Education

Jim Shelton is Assistant Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement. The Office makes strategic investments in innovative educational practices through two dozen discretionary grant programs and coordinates the public school choice and supplemental educational services provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended by No Child Left Behind. The Office of Innovation and Improvement also created the Innovations in Education guides which detail how school systems around the country have put the No Child Left Behind Act to work.

Prior to serving at the U.S. Department of Education, Shelton served as the program director of the Education Division at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also was a partner for the NewSchools Venture Fund, an entrepreneurial philanthropy based in San Francisco.

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Dr. Anthony Muhammad
Founder, New Frontier 21

Anthony Muhammad is one of the most sought after edu­ca­tional consultants in North America. As a practitioner of nearly twenty years, Dr. Muhammad has served as a middle school teacher, assistant principal, middle school principal, and high school principal. His tenure as a practitioner has earned him several awards as both a teacher and a principal.

Dr. Muhammad's most notable accomplishment came as principal at Levey Middle School in Southfield, Michigan, a National School of Excellence, where student proficiency on state assessments was more than doubled in five years. Dr. Muhammad and the staff at Levey used the Professional Learning Communities at Work (PLC) model of school improvement, and they have been recognized in several videos and articles as a model, high‑performing PLC.

As a researcher, he has published articles in several publications in both the United States and Canada. Dr. Muhammad is a contributing author to the book The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community, published in 2008. He also authored Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division, published in 2009.

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Kati Haycock
President, Education Trust

Kati Haycock is one of the nation's leading child advocates in the field of education.

She currently serves as President of the Education Trust. Established in 1992, the Trust does what no other Washington‑based education organization seeks to do: speaks up for what's right for young people, especially those who are poor or members of minority groups. The Trust also provides hands‑on assistance to educators who want to work together to improve student achievement, pre‑kindergarten through college.

Prior to coming to the Education Trust, Haycock served as Executive Vice President of the Children's Defense Fund, the nation's largest child advocacy organization.

A native Californian, Haycock founded and served as president of The Achievement Council, a statewide organization that provides assistance to teachers and principals in predominately minority schools in improving student achievement. Before that, she served as director of the Outreach and Student Affirmative Action programs for the nine‑campus University of California system.

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Leigh Manasevit
Brustein & Manasevit Attorneys at Law

As one of the two founding partners of Brustein & Manasevit, Mr. Leigh M. Manasevit established a law practice that addresses federal‑level legal issues involving public, private, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions. He has appeared extensively before all tribunals of the U.S. Department of Education and regularly pursues federal court review of unfavorable agency decisions.

Mr. Manasevit has practiced in the field of education law since 1974, beginning as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. During his government service, Mr. Manasevit regularly appeared in federal court representing the United States in civil rights cases involving educational institutions across the nation. His work included one case ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. On the elementary and secondary level, he has advised and trained schools, districts, states, and private providers throughout the nation on implementation of NCLB. He also regularly advises recipients of Title I on implementation issues and speaks at national and statewide organizations of Title 1 professionals.

Mr Manasevit's government experience has given him an extensive familiarity with the intricacies of navigating the federal bureaucracy and managing school districts. Mr. Manasevit coauthored a comprehensive manual on No Child Left Behind and its predecessor, the Improving America's Schools Act; graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law; and received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York City.

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Ted Mitchell
CEO, NewSchools Venture Fund
President, California State Board of Education

Ted Mitchell assumed the role of CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund in the fall of 2005, after having served on the NewSchools Board of Directors for seven years.

Prior to joining NewSchools, Mitchell served as the 12th president of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Mitchell's tenure at Occidental was marked by a dramatic improvement in both the College's national reputation and its engagement in the community, as well as by unprecedented financial growth. A former deputy to the president at Stanford University and vice chancellor at University of California, Los Angeles, Mitchell is a national leader in the effort to provide high-quality education for all students and has long been active in California and Los Angeles educational reform initiatives. He currently chairs the Governor's Committee on Educational Excellence, charged with making recommendations to improve California's system of K–12 finance and governance, and is President of the California State Board of Education. He also serves on the boards of a variety of nonprofit education organizations.

Ted graduated from Stanford with bachelor's degrees in economics and history, and also earned a master's degree in history and a doctorate in education there.

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Uri Treisman
Executive Director, Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Uri Treisman is professor of mathematics and of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the founder and executive director of the University's Charles A. Dana Center, which supports K–12 teachers and leaders working to implement high academic standards for all students.

Professor Treisman has received numerous honors and awards for his efforts to strengthen American education and he is actively engaged in advising and designing programs that strengthen the teaching and learning of mathematics and science from elementary to graduate school. He is a founding board member of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. In addition to involvement with many other groups, he currently serves on the advisory board of a new partnership comprised of Achieve, the National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers, focused on ensuring that states are benchmarking their education policies and practices against best practices globally.

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Jack O'Connell
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction

As chief of California's public school system and leader of the California Department of Education, Superintendent O'Connell has focused on closing the achievement gap and preparing students for a rapidly changing global economy by holding high standards for all students. He is a strong supporter and facilitator of partnerships between schools, businesses, communities, and philanthropies in order to engage students with challenging, real‑world education experiences.

O'Connell has worked to fortify California's world‑class academic standards, strengthen California's school accountability and assessment systems and bolster state funding for public school classrooms. As a former high school teacher and author of the legislation creating the California High School Exit Exam, he has led a comprehensive effort to increase rigor and improve student achievement in California high schools. He also has been a leader among state school chiefs nationwide in an effort to increase flexibility and fairness in the federal No Child Left Behind school accountability system.

Superintendent O'Connell received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from California State University (CSU), Fullerton and earned his secondary teaching credential from CSU, Long Beach in 1975. He returned to his high school alma mater to teach for several years and later served on the Santa Barbara County School Board. He was elected to the 35th State Assembly District in 1982 and was reelected by wide margins thereafter, once garnering both the Republican and the Democratic nominations. In 1994, O'Connell was elected to the 18th State Senate District on California's Central Coast and easily won reelection in 1998.

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Panels

“The PACE of Reform in California: Commentary on New Efforts to Change California's Public Education Systems”

Executive Director David Plank of PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) and colleagues will moderate a panel discussion on alternative compensation programs in California and discuss the American Diploma Project (ADP). California joined ADP in late 2007 and recommendations to adopt college and career readiness programs and policies—that are shared by K-12, higher education, and the business community—are due by December 2009. ADP in California is supported by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the James L. Irvine Foundation.

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