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.

The son of a lifelong classroom teacher, Garcia has been communicating about schools, teaching, and learning for more than twenty years, first as an award-winning journalist at three newspapers on Time magazine’s Top Ten list and more recently as a strategist advising nonprofits, foundations, states, and school districts. He served as chief communications officer for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation’s fourth-largest school system, where his work included advancing Superintendent Rudy Crew’s ambitious agenda to transform the district’s middle and high schools and expanding outreach to non-English-speaking households.

Garcia was director of public leadership for Achieve, Inc., where he played a significant role in launching the American Diploma Project to define academic readiness for college and good jobs and in planning two national education summits of governors and leading CEOs. He was a successful public affairs consultant with CommunicationWorks in Washington, DC, where his clients included the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, the National Center on Education and the Economy, the Success for All Foundation, the Maryland State Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Garcia earned his bachelor’s degree in history and government from Harvard College.