2006 Review Board Members

A distinguished group of the country's top educational leaders serves as the Review Board for The Broad Prize for Urban Education. The Review Board members examine performance indicators, demographic statistics and other information about the urban school districts that are eligible for the Prize. Based on their examination, the Review Board narrows the list of 100 eligible school districts to the five finalists for the Prize.

Russlynn Ali is the founding director of the Education Trust-West, the west coast partner of the national policy and advocacy organization the Education Trust. The organization works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, with an emphasis on serving Latino, African American, Native American and low-income students. In her 10 years of advocacy work prior to joining Education Trust West, Ali held several senior positions at various organizations serving youth education, including liaison to the president of the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, DC, chief of staff to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and deputy co-director of the Advancement Project.

Anne L. Bryant is the executive director of the National School Boards Association, a national federation of state school board associations. Bryant also is on the board of trustees at Simmons College, and was the Association Trends Executive of the Year in 2005.

Christopher Cross formed Cross & Joftus, LLC in 2004 to provide education leaders with personalized and expert assistance in policy analysis and development, evaluation, executive coaching, planning, and communication strategies. Cross is a former senior fellow with the Center on Education Policy and with the Education Commission of the States. Previously he served as president and CEO of the Council for Basic Education, and served as an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush.

Jo Lynne DeMary was Virginia's former superintendent of public instruction. With more than 35 years of experience in public education, DeMary has served as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, elementary school supervisor, director of special education and assistant superintendent of public schools.

Charles Desmond is the executive vice president of the Massachusetts-based Trefler Foundation and serves on the steering committee of Urban Serving Universities, a national network of 19 urban universities. He previously served as associate chancellor at the University of Massachusetts.

Dan Goldhaber is a research associate professor at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs, as well as an affiliated scholar of the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center, and a senior non-resident fellow of Education Sector. Goldhaber is founder and CEO of MATCH School and previously served as an elected member of the Alexandria City School Board from 1997 to 2002.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of several books on education reform. Hess is also executive editor of Education Next, a journal of research and opinion on education policy published by the Hoover Institution.

Paul T. Hill is a research professor at the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs. He also directs the Center on Reinventing Public Education and is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

David Hornbeck is the former president of the Children's Defense Fund, a private, non-profit organization working to improve conditions for young people in America. He is also the founder and chair of Good Schools Pennsylvania, a grassroots initiative of thousands of high school and college students, parents, and other citizens supporting quality public education for all students in Pennsylvania. Hornbeck served as superintendent of Philadelphia Public Schools from 1994 to 2000.

Phyllis Hunter is an education consultant in Houston, working on the Texas Statewide Reading Initiative. She is also a literacy consultant to President George W. Bush and has served as an administrator in the Houston Independent School District where she managed the district's reading department.

Wendy Kopp is president and founder of Teach For America, a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools. Kopp proposed Teach For America in her undergraduate senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989 and has spent the last 15 years working to sustain and grow the organization. She also serves on the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.

Alexander "Sandy" Kress is an attorney at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld & LLP in Austin, Texas, focusing on public law and policy at the state and national levels, and an education advisor to President George W. Bush. He previously served as president of the board of trustees of the Dallas Independent School District.

Wendy Puriefoy is the president of the Public Education Network (PEN), the nation's largest network of community-based school reform organizers. Under her leadership, PEN has grown into a national network of local education funds in 31 states and the District of Columbia reaching more than 10 million poor and disadvantaged students in urban and rural school districts.

Piedad Robertson is president of the Education Commission of the States, a national non-profit organization that helps legislators develop and implement policies to improve student learning. In 2003, she was appointed to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Transition Committee and was named special advisor to former California Secretary of Education Richard Riordan. Robertson also served four years as Massachusetts secretary of education.

Andrew "Andy" Rotherham is co-founder and co-director of Education Sector, an independent national education policy think tank. In 1998, Rotherham launched the 21st Century Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, which he directed until 2005, and focused on improving teacher quality, public school choice, special education, and modernizing the federal role in education. Rotherham previously served as special assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Clinton Administration.

Anthony "Tony" Trujillo is a senior associate at the National Center on Education and the Economy. He was formerly superintendent of public schools in El Paso Ysleta School District in Texas and in Marin County Schools and the Sweetwater Union High School District, both in California.