Washington, D.C. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has appointed Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Christopher Cerf to join its Board of Directors.
We are very pleased to welcome Sen. Landrieu and Mr. Cerf to our board, and appreciate their time and commitment to the charter school movement, said Nina Rees, president and CEO at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. We are incredibly grateful to our board members for strengthening our organization and helping to broaden our movements profile. We look forward to working with these new members whose backgrounds will offer fresh perspectives to our work.
Former Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu spent 35 years in public service, demonstrating her passionate commitment to children and families as a Louisiana state legislator, state treasurer, and U.S. senator. Throughout her tenure in Washington, Sen. Landrieu was a public charter school champion, helping to forge a bipartisan consensus in support of charter schools that has endured for two decades. We look forward to benefiting from Sen. Landrieu’s keen political insight, her frontline experience with education reform, and her dedication to the well-being of children across America.
Chris Cerf is the CEO of Amplify Insight, which helps teachers and other educators use data to improve decision-making and accelerate personalized learning. Prior to joining Amplify, Mr. Cerf served as New Jerseys commissioner of education, where he oversaw 2,500 public schools, 1.4 million students, and 110,000 teachers. As a reform leader in New Jersey, Mr. Cerf led the effort to expand charter school capacity in some of the nations most under-served communities. Mr. Cerf has also worked with Joel Klein as deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, as associate counsel to President Bill Clinton, and as a high school history teacher in Ohio.
About Public Charter Schools
Public charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many independent research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.
About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector. For more information, please visit our website at www.publiccharters.org.
