Robert Balfanz is a research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University and associate director of the Talent Development Middle and High School Project, which is currently working with more than fifty high-poverty secondary schools to develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive whole-school reforms. His work focuses on translating research findings into effective reforms for high-poverty secondary schools.

Gene Bottoms has served as director of the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools That Work initiative (HSTW) since 1987. In July 1997, Bottoms was promoted to senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board, reflecting his role in and SREB’s interest in and commitment to the initiative. HSTW is an effort to improve high schools for career-bound students involving over 1,000 high schools in more than thirty states.

Harold D. Brown is the vice president of KnowledgeWorks and founding executive director of its subsidiary, EdWorks. In this dual role, Brown oversees the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative, a more than $40 million program to transform large, struggling urban high schools into smaller, more successful schools.

For the last five years, Beverly Donohue has been vice president for policy and research at New Visions for Public Schools, an education reform organization dedicated to improving schools in New York City.

Joseph Garcia is the vice president for advocacy and communications for the North Carolina New Schools Project, an organization working to accelerate systemic, sustainable secondary school reform across the state of North Carolina.

Susan Follett Lusi is currently the Superintendent for the Portsmouth, Rhode Island Schools. She has previously served as an educational consultant whose major areas of interest lie in teacher quality and accountability. Lusi had been vice president of public policy at the Alliance for Excellent Education after serving as Chief of Staff for the Providence Public Schools in Providence, RI.

Donald R. Pittman is an associate professor at Northeastern Illinois University. He recently retired from Chicago Public Schools (CPS), where he was the chief officer of high school programs. In this capacity, Pittman was the instructional leader for six area instruction officers and was responsible for the development and implementation of educational programs for over one hundred high schools.

Janet Quint is a senior research associate at MDRC, a nonprofit education and social policy research organization. She has directed or participated in a number of mixed-methods studies of education reform initiatives. Currently, Quint leads a team examining the implementation of small high schools in New York City that were established with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Warren Simmons is the executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. The institute was established in 1993 to develop, share, and act on knowledge that improves conditions and outcomes in American schools, particularly in urban areas and in schools serving disadvantaged students. It pursues its mission through three circles of work: district redesign and leadership, research and knowledge products, and community organizing and engagement.

Charity Smith is the assistant commissioner for the Arkansas Department of Education. In this capacity, she helps to ensure that all school districts in Arkansas are held accountable for improving student achievement. During her tenure, Arkansas has received national recognition in a number of areas, including rigorous academic standards, accountability, reporting, teacher quality, and consistent academic improvement.

Adria Steinberg is the associate vice president of Jobs for the Future (JFF), a nonprofit organization that promotes innovative reform in education and workforce development. She has almost four decades of experience in the field of education—as a teacher, administrator, researcher, and writer. Combining knowledge of practice, policy, and research, her articles and books have made her a key contributor to the national conversation about high school reform.

Christopher Swanson is the director of the EPE Research Center, a division of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit organization that publishes Education Week. In this capacity, he oversees a staff of full-time researchers and interns who conduct annual policy surveys, collect data, and perform analyses that appear in the Quality Counts, Technology Counts, and Diplomas Count annual reports of Education Week.

Ralph D. Thibodeaux presently serves as the high school redesign coordinator at the Louisiana Department of Education. Previously, he was principal of Abbeville High School located in Abbeville, LA. Under his appointment as principal, Abbeville High School has received numerous honors and accolades from the Louisiana State Department of Education and similar associations, including: Exemplary School and a Lighthouse School for High School ReDesign in Louisiana.

Ash Vasudeva, PhD, is Co-executive Director of Stanford University’s School Redesign Network (SRN). Vasudeva develops partnerships with districts, school developers, and intermediary organizations and heads up SRN’s portfolio of research, evaluation and leadership development initiatives.

Kirsten Vital was appointed chief of community accountability for the Oakland Unified School District in January 2006. In this role, she works to ensure that families and communities are engaged in the quality of individual schools through a school tiering, achievement, and choice program. Through the tiering process, she engages families in data inquiry and, when necessary, intervenes in schools to improve achievement.

Judy Wurtzel is co-director of the Aspen Institute Program on Education and Society. The program provides a forum for education practitioners, researchers, and policy leaders to reflect on efforts to improve student achievement and to consider how public policy changes can affect progress. Current program initiatives include the Aspen Senior Congressional Staff Network, the Aspen Urban Superintendents’ Network, and the Aspen Urban Literacy Leadership Network, as well as policy development on rethinking human capital in urban school districts.