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, Huffman 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. Huffman 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 Huffman’s tenure, Tennessee had the largest state gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Huffman began his education career as a first- and second-grade bilingual teacher in the Houston Independent School District. After attending law school, Huffman 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. Huffman 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. Huffman has written opinion columns for a range of publications including as a regular contributor to the Washington Post. Huffman won the Post’s national writing competition to find “America’s Next Great Pundit” in 2009. Huffman graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in English Literature, and from the New York University School of Law.

Naeha Dean is Chief Strategy Officer at Accelerate. Prior to joining Accelerate, Naeha was the Founder and Executive Director of the Camden Education Fund (CEF), a non-profit philanthropy supporting public schools in Camden, NJ. In this role, she led citywide investments in public education, including those supporting instructional quality, talent, equity, engagement and postsecondary pathways. Naeha launched CEF after working for four years at the Camden City School District, where she served as Chief of Staff to Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard. Naeha began her career as a math teacher in New Orleans. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

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. Towns 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. Towns 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, Towns 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, Towns 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. Towns 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. Towns 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, Towns 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.

Luke Kohlmoos started his career at D.C. Public Schools working primarily on community engagement and communications. After his time at DCPS, he joined Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s transition team (and met his wife on his first day, thanks Kevin!) and ultimately stayed on at the Tennessee Department of Education. During his time at the TDOE, he worked on educator effectiveness through managing the Teacher Incentive Fund, worked as Chief of Staff for the Assistant Commissioner of Teachers and Leaders, and led the state’s work on teacher evaluation. In late 2015, he co-founded Instruction Partners where he worked until joining Accelerate in 2022.

Seth got his start as a high-school math teacher in the great city of Central Falls, RI. That’s where he created a financial literacy tool called Kolker Kash and a civics education program called How to Change the World. Seth worked as a community organizer, curriculum developer, and a policy advisor on the Education Policy Committee of the Biden-Harris campaign, before joining America Achieves to help develop and incubate Accelerate. He is a Schwarzman and Knight-Hennessy Scholar, has a bachelor’s from Yale and a master’s in education from Rhode Island College, and is a candidate for a JD-MBA from Stanford. Seth calls Rhode Island home.

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.