An unprecedented time in public education

Kevin Huffman is the founding CEO of Accelerate, a national initiative that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring and personalized learning in public schools. Prior to helping launch Accelerate, Kevin was a partner with City Fund, a philanthropic nonprofit, where he supported the efforts of local leaders in cities across the country working to create great public schools for all children. Kevin is the former Tennessee commissioner of education, where he managed the state department of education in its effort to advance the academic progress of nearly one million students. During his tenure, Tennessee had the largest state gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Kevin began his education career as a first- and second-grade bilingual teacher in the Houston Independent School District. After attending law school, Kevin represented school districts, state departments of education and universities, working on policy and litigation matters at the Washington D.C. law firm of Hogan & Hartson. He then joined the senior management of Teach For America in 2000, serving as the general counsel, the senior vice president of growth strategy and development, and the executive vice president of public affairs. Kevin has written opinion columns for a range of publications including as a regular contributor to the Washington Post. He won the Post’s national writing competition to find “America’s Next Great Pundit” in 2009. Kevin graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in English Literature, and from the New York University School of Law.

Dr. T. Nakia Towns has a proven track record of raising the bar for all kids, closing opportunity gaps, increasing graduation rates, and improving postsecondary readiness. As Chief Operating Officer, Nakia serves Accelerate’s program, operations, and research functions. Nakia was previously the Deputy Superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS), serving over 180,000 students in Georgia’s largest district, which is also the 11th largest in the country. In this role, she provided strategic direction to all divisions, with a focus on school improvement and operations as well as curriculum and instructional support. Nakia led transformative work in GCPS to pilot high quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading and full implementation of whole child supports to achieve educational equity. Before her appointment in GCPS, Nakia served as interim and deputy superintendent at Hamilton County Schools (HCS) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she led the executive cabinet to ensure that the district’s strategic goals and objectives were met. Initially hired as chief of staff, her experience in business and engineering provided her the perspective to drive continuous improvement across all departments, leading HCS to become the fastest improving district in Tennessee. Prior to joining Hamilton County, Nakia was Assistant Commissioner, Division of Data and Research, at the Tennessee Department of Education. During her time at the department, she served on the executive leadership team and helped set the strategic direction for PreK-12 educational policy through her work in developing the state’s highly regarded plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Towns, who believes that access to a high-quality public education is foundational to a thriving democracy, spearheaded her division’s efforts in promoting both equity and excellence in Tennessee public schools. Nakia transitioned to education leadership at Knox County Schools where she rose to Chief Accountability Officer, responsible for evaluating and growing the district’s overall educational return on investment. Towns was instrumental in launching a new teacher leadership model and differentiated compensation plan as a director in human resources. This work facilitated her involvement in developing aspiring school leaders through the district’s partnership with the University of Tennessee Leadership Academy. During her tenure, Knox County Schools became the only large urban district to ever earn the state’s highest accountability designation and achieve a 90% graduation rate. Nakia is respected nationally for her work in public education. She was selected for the Future Chiefs leadership development program by Chiefs for Change, as well as the Broad Residency in Urban Education by the Broad Center. She has worked as an associate adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University for the education doctorate program and as a practitioner advisor for the Annenberg Institute at Brown University’s EdResearch for Recovery project. Towns has served as an expert peer reviewer, keynote speaker, facilitator, and panelist for numerous conferences and initiatives to support the work of educators across the country. Assuming roles of increasing responsibility at IBM, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank, Towns began her career in the fields of technology and finance. While in the private sector, she co-founded a nonprofit after-school tutoring and intervention program in rural south Georgia, continuing her lifelong commitment to public education. Her work as a volunteer teacher in the Saturday-school program inspired her to pursue the field of education as her fulltime passion and profession. At Duke University, Nakia completed a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and an M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business. She also earned an M.Ed. in educational leadership from The Broad Center for Education Management (now at the Yale University School of Management) and a doctorate of education in K-12 leadership and policy from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. She is a Georgia native, where she attended public schools and graduated from Clarke Central High School in Athens.

Kimberly Ueyama is Chief of Staff at Accelerate. Before joining Accelerate, she served on the leadership team at DREAM, a network of extended-day, extended-year schools and programs in New York City. In her roles as Senior Advisor, Chief of Staff to the Co-CEOs, she led strategic initiatives that enabled the organization to function more effectively and efficiently. Prior to DREAM, Kimberly provided counsel and strategic support to organizations across the nonprofit sector at CCS, an international fundraising consultancy. Her commitment to nonprofits stems from her first career as a secondary math teacher in New Orleans, LA where she taught at open-enrollment public schools serving low-income populations through Teach For America. Kimberly received her B.A. in English and B.S. in Public Policy from the University of Southern California and her M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management. She lives in Manhattan with her husband Justin and dog Josephine.

Jennifer Bronson serves as Managing Director of Programs at Accelerate. In this role she will work with Accelerate’s portfolio of grantees to understand emerging best practice in individualized instruction and build programming for Accelerate’s Community of Practice to share research, explore implementation challenges, and encourage adoption of promising strategies. Prior to joining Accelerate, Jennifer most recently served as Executive Director of Chattanooga 2.0, the cradle-to-career collaborative of Chattanooga-Hamilton County, Tennessee. As the convening entity that brings community, business, nonprofit, and education partners together to align resources and strategic focus, Chattanooga 2.0 seeks to improve outcomes for Hamilton County, Tennessee students, including early childhood, K-12, and higher education learners. Before leading Chattanooga 2.0, Jennifer served as Chief of Staff for Hamilton County Schools, where she led the school system’s COVID-19 response and launched a Student Success Planning pilot in partnership with Harvard University’s Education Redesign Lab and the By All Means consortium. Jennifer began her career as a first and fifth grade teacher through Teach for America in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she went on to work in talent and leadership development as a project manager for Clark County Schools, the nation’s fifth-largest school district. Also an attorney, Jennifer served as an assistant public defender in the Missouri State Public Defender office and is admitted to the State Bars of Wisconsin and Missouri. During her legal career, she worked with the Wisconsin State Public Defender Juvenile Unit and was a judicial intern in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Jennifer received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and a master’s degree in education from the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she received the Wisconsin Idea Merit Scholarship, which is awarded to a student who seeks to improve the quality of life for citizens of the state. Jennifer lives in South Carolina with her husband and three sons.

Tu-Quyen serves as the Managing Director of Operations at Accelerate, and brings expertise in financial management, technology, and human resources. Prior to Accelerate, she was the Vice President of Operations at Heights Philadelphia and the Chief Operating Officer at Steppingstone Scholars, where she led the operational and fiscal integration of a non-profit merger and supported the rapid growth of programmatic initiatives and partnerships across Philadelphia. During her tenure at Steppingstone Scholars, she oversaw university, city, and state grants and contracts, ensuring fiscal compliance and reporting, and facilitated the growth of the operational budget from $1.1 million to $12 million after the merger. Tu-Quyen has also served as a regional director of admissions and associate director of opportunity and access for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania where she coordinated recruitment and yield efforts for underserved students. Her experience serving youth has deepened her commitment to work in areas and spaces that alleviate systemic barriers for historically disconnected populations. Tu-Quyen holds a B.A from Colby College, and an MS.Ed. in Education, Culture and Society from the University of Pennsylvania.

Narric Rome serves as Managing Director of Federal & State Policy at Accelerate. In this role he works to advance Accelerate’s federal and state policy agenda and build effective partnerships with education stakeholders. Prior to joining Accelerate, Narric served as a legislative aide to Secretary Richard Riley at the U.S. Department of Education where he received the Peer Recognition Award. Most recently, Narric was the Vice President of Government Affairs at Americans for the Arts where he led education policy initiatives for the creative sector focused on strengthening equity in public school, and out-of-school settings. Over the course of two decades, Narric led advocacy efforts impacting the No Child Left Behind Act, the Every Student Succeeds Act, and recent pandemic-era assistance programs. In 2019, Narric and his team were recognized by the Public Affairs Council with their Lobbying Strategy Innovation award. Earlier in his career, Narric was on the policy and research staff of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, and worked on Capitol Hill, at the Podesta Group, and on several state and national political campaigns. He is the immediate past-president of the Vermont State Society. Narric holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Vermont and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Columbia University.

Dr. Matthew P. Steinberg serves as the Managing Director of Research and Evaluation at Accelerate. In this role, Matthew develops Accelerate’s research agenda, drives the design and evaluation of research projects funded via Accelerate’s annual Call to Effective Action and States Leading Recovery grant program, leads research partnerships with Accelerate’s institutional partners to drive a coordinated research agenda, and identifies and communicates key research findings internally and externally to the field. Prior to joining Accelerate, Matthew was an Associate Professor of Education and Public Policy (with tenure) and Director of EdPolicyForward at George Mason University. Matthew's research has addressed issues of educational significance at the intersection of the economics of education and education policy, including educator evaluation and human capital; accountability and urban school reform; education finance; and school safety and student discipline. Matthew's work aims to inform local and national policy discussions on the impact of educational policies and practices on teacher effectiveness and the educational outcomes of students, particularly the most disadvantaged among the population. Matthew’s research has appeared in leading education, public policy and economics journals. A recipient of the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, Matthew received his PhD in public policy from the University of Chicago. During his tenure as a doctoral student, Matthew was an Institute of Education Sciences Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the University of Chicago Committee on Education, a researcher at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and a Mathematica Policy Research Summer Fellow. Prior to graduate school, Matthew was an investment banker and a New York City Teaching Fellow.

Milagro serves as program director at Accelerate. She was previously an associate policy analyst at The Hunt Institute, where she supported state policymakers and conducted research and analysis on education policy issues across the continuum in North Carolina. Milagro holds a B.A. in Ethnicity and Race studies from Columbia University in the City of New York. While at Columbia, Milagro worked as a researcher, community organizer, and college access mentor. Milagro calls Virginia home, and she is an avid advocate for rural and multilingual children.

Jason Godfrey is the Director of Data Science at Accelerate, joining by way of appointment with Harvard University’s Strategic Data Project. As a researcher, he has consistently transformed intricate, disorderly data into actionable recommendations backed by clear metrics for assessing progress. His research takes a pioneering look at linguistic practices within education, leveraging NLP tools on custom-crafted datasets of student essays to discern which semantic and lexicogrammatical features are most rewarded by their host institutions. This research offers significant value for post-secondary policymakers, empowering them to recognize and adapt the linguistic functions indoctrinated by their institutions. Previously, his tenure at Michigan’s Sweetland Center for Writing saw him deploy quasi-experimental methods to estimate the causal impact of self-placement on student outcomes, with his research featuring in leading journals and inspiring policy shifts that create more equitable outcomes for minoritized, low-income, and first-generation college students. Godfrey is a PhD candidate at University of Michigan’s Joint Program in English and Education, where he has been a Regent, Rackham, and OER fellow.