Student Achievement Partners
News
David Coleman Named New President of the College Board
News release from Student Achievement Partners
News release from the College Board
Principles
We hold no intellectual property
Our goal is to create and disseminate high quality materials as widely as possible. All resources that we create are open source and available at no cost. We encourage states, districts, schools, and teachers to take our resources and make them their own.
We do not compete for state or district contracts
Ensuring that states and districts have excellent materials for teachers and students is a top priority. We do not compete for these contracts because we work with our partners to develop high quality RFPs that support the Core Standards.
We do not accept money from publishers
We work with states and districts to obtain the best materials for teachers and students. We are able to independently advise our partners because we have no financial interests with any publisher of education materials. Our independence is essential to our work.
Work
Student Achievement Partners is a nonprofit organization that assembles educators and researchers to design actions based on evidence that will substantially improve student achievement. Founded by three of the contributing authors of the Common Core State Standards, Student Achievement Partners is devoted to accelerating student achievement by driving effective and innovative implementation of the Common Core.
Student Achievement Partners played a leading role in development of the Core Standards, a process that drew on the input of teachers, business leaders, researchers, and policymakers. As contributing authors of the Core Standards, Student Achievement Partners integrated 10,000 public comments from teachers and other stakeholders as the Standards were being developed. Throughout the development of the Core Standards, Student Achievement Partners was responsible for ensuring that the Standards were based on the best available evidence of what students need to master in order to be ready for the demands of college and career.
Now, Student Achievement Partners is devoted to the successful implementation of the Core Standards. Student Achievement Partners continues to work closely with teachers on all the tools it develops, and the organization will continue to support teachers by making all resources available at no cost (www.achievethecore.org).
Team
David Coleman, Founding Partner
David Coleman grew up in a family of educators and has followed them into this field. Coleman went to public school in New York City until college. At Yale, he taught reading to secondary students in the Ulysses S. Grant program for low-income New Haven students and started Branch–"an innovative community service program that worked with students at an inner city New Haven high school. Based on the success of Branch, Coleman received a Rhodes Scholarship, which he used to study English literature at Oxford and classical educational philosophy at Cambridge. He returned to work at McKinsey & Company for five years, where he led much of the firm's pro bono work in education.
Together with a team of educators, Coleman then founded the Grow Network, an organization committed to making assessment results truly useful for teachers, parents, and students. The Grow Network delivered breakthrough quality reports for parents and teachers as well as individualized learning guides for students. Based on the success of Grow, McGraw-Hill acquired the organization in 2005.
Coleman left McGraw-Hill in 2007 and co-founded Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit that assembles educators and researchers to design actions based on evidence to improve student outcomes. Student Achievement Partners played a leading role in developing the Common Core State Standards in math and literacy, a process that drew on the input of teachers, states, higher education, business leaders, and researchers from across the country. As a Founding Partner, Coleman now helps lead Student Achievement Partners' work with teachers and policymakers to achieve the promise of the Common Core State Standards.
Coleman has been recognized as one of Time magazine's "11 Education Activists for 2011" and was recently named one of the NewSchools Venture Fund Change Agents of the Year for 2012.
Jason Zimba, Founding Partner
Jason is a Founding Partner of Student Achievement Partners. As a contributing author of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics, Jason was instrumental in achieving a new state of the art for internationally-benchmarked, college and career ready standards based on evidence.
Jason graduated summa cum laude from Williams College with a double major in mathematics and astrophysics. He earned his M.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the University of California at Berkeley. Jason’s published research spans a range of fields, including astronomy, astrophysics, theoretical physics, philosophy of science, and pure mathematics. His academic awards include a Rhodes scholarship and a Majorana Prize for theoretical physics. Jason has held faculty positions in physics and mathematics at Grinnell College and Bennington College. As an educator, he has taught physics, mathematics, and other subjects to college students, university physics and engineering majors, adult prison inmates, disadvantaged high school students, and children of non-English speaking immigrants. He is the author of Force and Motion: An Illustrated Guide to Newton's Laws.
Jason was also a co-founder of The Grow Network, an education technology company that helps state and district school systems use assessment to inform instruction. As the company's Head of Education and Product Development prior to its acquisition by McGraw-Hill in 2004, Jason was responsible for standards alignment, curriculum design, product development, educational strategy, and psychometrics, working closely with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and education leaders.
Susan Pimentel, Founding Partner
Susan Pimentel is a Founding Partner of Student Achievement Partners. Before her work as a contributing author of the Common Core State Standards for literacy, Susan Pimentel's efforts have been focused on helping communities, districts and states across the nation work together to advance education reform and champion proven tools for increasing academic rigor. Her efforts have resulted in the phase-out of student tracking, enriched core curricula, and advances in results-based school accountability programs. Susan also has led several national improvement efforts, including two multi-state adult education reform initiatives under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Adult and Vocational Education (OVAE), and the development of content for the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence – a rigorous discipline-specific national teacher test. Among other work, Susan has led training sessions for KIPP School Fellows preparing to lead charter schools around the nation for middle and high school students who live in high need urban and rural areas. Susan focuses on building systems from the inside out, equipping school leaders with the resources and support they need to sustain the process of continuous improvement, close community collaboration, and data-driven results.
Susan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood education and a law degree from Cornell University. Since 2007, she has served on the National Assessment Governing Board that advises on the nation’s report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In addition to several articles, Susan is co-author with Denis P. Doyle of the best-selling book and CD-ROM, Raising the Standard: An Eight-Step Action Guide For Schools and Communities.
William McCallum, Advisor
William G. McCallum is a University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona. Born in Sydney, Australia in 1956, he received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1984, under the supervision of Barry Mazur. After spending two years at the University of California, Berkeley, and one at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, he joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 1987. In 1989 he joined the Harvard calculus consortium, and is the lead author of the consortium's multivariable calculus and college algebra texts. In 1993-94 he spent a year at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, and in 1995-96 he spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study on a Centennial Fellowship from the American Mathematical Society. In 2005 he received the Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars from the National Science Foundation. In 2006 he founded the Institute for Mathematics and Education at the University of Arizona. He was Director of the Institute until 2009 and now chairs its advisory board. In 2009–2010 he was a contributing author for the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. His professional interests include arithmetical algebraic geometry and mathematics education. He has received grants and written articles, essays, and books in both areas. In 2012, he won the American Mathematical Society's Award for Distinguished Public Service.
Phil Daro, Advisor
Philip Daro works to advance the design and use of improvement tools at every level of the educational system, and he consults with states and school districts on their accountability systems and mathematics programs. He was a contributing author of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.
He directed the New Standards Project and Research and Development for the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) – there his responsibilities included test development, development of mathematics curriculum, and staff development programs.
He has consulted for the New York City School District, the El Paso Collaborative, Los Angeles School District, Chicago Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, states of Vermont, Georgia, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and California and others. He directed large scale teacher professional development programs for the University of California including the California Mathematics Project and the American Mathematics Project. His sixteen years at the University included six years directing projects to help states develop standards, accountability and testing systems. He has taught mathematics and has held leadership positions with the California Department of Education. He has served on many committees including: NAEP Validity Committee; RAND Mathematics Education Research Panel; College Board Mathematics Framework Committee; ACHIEVE Technical (Assessment) Advisory Group, Mathematics Work Group; Technical Advisory Committee to National Goals Panel for World Class Standards, National Governors Association; Title I Commission organized by Council of Chief State School Officers; Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council; California Public Broadcasting Commission; and The Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities (WASC). He is currently working with the Pearson Foundation and the Gates Foundation to develop a digital curriculum for mathematics from Kindergarten to the college ready level.
Todd Huston, Independent Board Member
Throughout his professional career, Todd Huston has been an active agent for change and improvement in education. Currently, he serves as a Strategic Business Development Manager for Cisco System, helping assist Higher Education and K-12 customers transform their operations and the student experience with technology.
Prior to rejoining Cisco, Todd served as the Chief of Staff for the Indiana Department of Education. He took this post in January 2009, when Dr. Tony Bennett became the state’s new Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“Todd’s leadership has been crucial to successfully implementing bold reforms to benefit Hoosier students,” said Dr. Bennett. “His experience, his vision and his unwavering commitment to improving student achievement make him one of the greatest education leaders in the nation. We are privileged to have him on our team.”
In 2005, Governor Mitch Daniels appointed Todd to serve on the Indiana State Board of Education. Before serving on the State Board, Todd was a school board member for Hamilton Southeastern Schools, one of the largest and fastest growing districts in the state.
Prior to joining the department, Todd had a successful career in the private sector, working with school corporations and local government with technology and financial issues. He has also been involved in numerous civic and political organizations and has held leadership positions with these organizations.
Todd has been married to his wife, Denise, for sixteen years and they have two children, Elizabeth and Jake.
Jim Rosenthal, Independent Board Member
Jim Rosenthal is the Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Head of Corporate Strategy for Morgan Stanley. He is also a member of the Firm’s Management and Operating Committees.
Prior to assuming his current role in January 2010, Mr. Rosenthal was the Head of Firmwide Technology and Operations for Morgan Stanley and the Head of Integration for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
Mr. Rosenthal has more than two decades of experience across a wide spectrum of financial services. He joined the Firm in March 2008 from Tishman Speyer, where he served as Chief Financial Officer since 2006. Prior to that, he worked at Lehman Brothers from 1999 to 2005, where he was Head of Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development and a member of the Management Committee. He was with McKinsey & Company from 1986 to 1999, where he was a Senior Partner specializing in financial institutions, and Co-Head of the Investment Banking Practice.
Mr. Rosenthal has a B.A. degree from Yale and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.
Ariela Rozman, Independent Board Member
Ariela Rozman began her tenure with The New Teacher Project (TNTP) in 2001 as Vice President of Marketing. Prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2007, she served for four years as Vice President of Teaching Fellows Programs, growing TNTP’s largest business line to a staff of more than 60 individuals and overseeing the launch of 12 new programs in cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, and Oakland. Today, the Teaching Fellows Programs line supplies high-need school districts with approximately 3,000 high-quality teachers per year and accounts for over half of the organization’s revenue. Ariela also chaired TNTP’s Strategy Committee, a team comprised of TNTP’s senior leadership staff, for two years. Before joining The New Teacher Project, Ariela led the Online Marketing group for PlanetRx.com, which included managing the company's online new customer acquisition strategy, media buying and creative agency relationships, and large partnerships with companies such as AOL and Yahoo!. Ariela has also served as Special Assistant to the CEO at Muresco, a retail and manufacturing conglomerate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and as a consultant at Bain & Co., a leading strategy consulting firm, working with Fortune 500 companies to improve their overall growth strategies and revenue opportunities. She holds a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia.
Ann-Margaret Michael, Operations Manager
Ann-Margaret Michael is the Operations Manager of Student Achievement Partners, a non-profit organization that works to design actions to substantially improve student achievement. Ann-Margaret Michael’s career has consisted of both conference planning and high level Executive assistant positions in large organizations such as American Express, EDS and First American. In 2005 she joined McGraw-Hill as David Coleman’s Executive Assistant. After a two year tenure she left McGraw-Hill with David to start up Student Achievement Partners.
Amy Briggs
Amy Briggs is the Chief Operating Officer of Student Achievement Partners and manages day-to-day operations for the team. Prior to joining Student Achievement Partners in 2012, Amy supervised district and state partnerships, professional development, and program implementation at Kaplan K12 and The Grow Network. Amy holds a Bachelors in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University and a Masters in Business Administration in Operations Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sandra Alberti
Sandra Alberti serves as the Director of Partnership Initiatives and Professional Development for Student Achievement Partners, an organization that was instrumental in the development of the Common Core State Standards. Sandra joined Student Achievement Partners after having served the New Jersey Department of Education in the roles of Director of Academic Standards and Director of Math and Science Education. She was directly involved in state standards, assessment, and professional development policy and implementation strategies. Prior to working at the state level Sandra held several district-level positions including school superintendent, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, principal, subject area supervisor and high school science teacher. She has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Rutgers University and masters and doctorate degrees in Educational Leadership from Rowan University.
Jessica Eadie
Jessica Eadie is the lead of assessment projects for Student Achievement Partners. Student Achievement Partners is committed to supporting strong Common Core State Standards-aligned assessment design and execution and in her role, Jessica manages Student Achievement Partners’s efforts in this area. Jessica joined Student Achievement Partners in 2011 from the New York City Department of Education where she was the Executive Director of Assessment. Jessica holds a Bachelor of Science from Boston College and a Master in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Contact
To contact Student Achievement Partners, please email us at info@studentsachieve.net.