The Center for Education and Public Service
America’s first school of educational innovation
OUR MISSION
The sclerosis in K-12 education is a national crisis. Our primary and secondary school systems are failing families and society––and have been for decades. To make a change, we have to get to root causes.
Increasingly, schools are focused on teaching students “relevant” topics, ideologies, and strategies that drain learning of its meaning and wonder. Rather than fostering curiosity and intellectual humility, schools rob students of their natural desire to learn about the world around them.
They narrow their focus by equipping students for living in the “now” instead of exposing them to the wisdom of the past. At its roots, many of these long-standing challenges are driven by the schools of education in colleges and universities across the country. The U.S. has more than 1,200 post-secondary schools, colleges, and departments of education. However, nearly all, if not all, of these schools are focused on preparing future educators and administrators for the status quo–further calcifying the current, failing system.
With its commitment to fostering free and open inquiry and developing future leaders and entrepreneurs, the University of Austin (UATX) is seizing the opportunity to create the only school of education in the U.S. focused on educational choice and innovation. The Center for Education and Public Service (CEPS) will be quickly recognized as the leader in developing educators, entrepreneurs, and experts who can drive entrepreneurship and excellence throughout primary and secondary education. CEPS will focus on three core areas of study: pedagogy, education policy, and education entrepreneurship.
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Areas of Study
Pedagogy
Teachers are leaders. The Greek word paidagogos means “child-leader.” As such, teachers should first understand the moral weight of shaping the next generation, and by extension, our civilization itself. CEPS is distinctive among schools of education in that it takes intellectual and moral formation seriously. Since the early 20th century, schools of education have been neither academically rigorous nor meaningfully vocational.
CEPS students will first engage in the key civilization-shaping conversations through the UATX’s core undergraduate curriculum—Intellectual Foundations.
And they will gain significant vocational experiences in the form of student teaching at a variety of partner institutions, in contexts ranging from virtual learning, classical education, Montessori, project-based, and beyond. The CEPS curriculum will allow students to reflect deeply on the philosophy underlying each pedagogical approach as well as the way each approach achieves excellence on its own terms. Oriented by their Intellectual Foundations , students will complete a 4-year Polaris Project, building on the wisdom of the past to create something new that meets a pressing need in the K-12 space.
Education Policy
In the same way that teaching has been mired in an early 20th century vision of training people to be workers instead of leaders, educational institutions have been optimized for credentialing. The high school diploma was relatively rare until progressive education reformers made high school compulsory on the theory that the root of inequality was the credential, and not the unique talents and interests of each individual. Rampant credential inflation has followed, empowering institutions to gatekeep opportunities and create zero-sum conflicts.
CEPS will prepare students to understand how we got here and the emerging solutions to the one-size-fits-all model of schooling. Utilizing quantitative methods and public policy from leading researchers and practitioners, CEPS students will conduct meaningful research that contributes to policies that expand choice and improve policy implementation. Students will also have the opportunity to intern at leading policy organizations to learn how to carry out policy reforms in the legislative and administrative sectors.
Education Entrepreneurship
An ecosystem that supports robust choice is the first step in renewing our civilization, but it is just that—a first step. CEPS will equip a new generation of visionary leaders to create and lead excellent new schools and other learning environments to give families not just more choices, but truly better choices.
Students will have the opportunity to be mentored by leading educational entrepreneurs and leaders in Austin and beyond. They will be able to carry out their Polaris Projects with the advice and wisdom of bold innovators and fearless leaders. Projects could include developing new educational technologies, starting a microschool, writing better instructional materials, or creating methods for self-teaching. Intellectual Foundations will provide context for what it means for free people to be educated, and students will apply that inspiration in countless ways that will shape the civilization of tomorrow.
WHO WE ARE
Erin Davis Valdez is the Executive Director of the Incubator of the Center for Education and Public Service at the University of Austin. She has been passionate about the transformational power of education all her life, having been given the gift of being homeschooled. She taught for over a decade in Austin-area schools and served as an assistant principal at a charter school in Lewisville. These experiences have given her the opportunity to see first-hand how students can thrive when they have excellent options.
Valdez joined the Charles Koch Foundation in 2015 where she helped to grow a portfolio focused on helping innovative K12 programs grow through higher education and other partnerships. At the Texas Public Policy Foundation, she conducted research on outcomes-based funding at the secondary and postsecondary levels, civics education, and workforce programs in Texas. She has testified before the Texas and U.S. legislatures and shepherded legislation expanding educational choices for K12 and postsecondary students.
Valdez earned an M.A. in Classics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in Classical Studies from Hillsdale College. She studied in Athens, Greece her junior year and worked as an excavator at the Agora archaeological site for three seasons.
Valdez has lived in the Austin area (on and off) since 1990, which counts as “native” these days. She enjoys cooking, reading, volunteering, and spending time with her husband Jeremy, her family, friends, and cocker spaniel, Scoops.
Matthew develops educational programs fostering vibrant communities dedicated to excellence, liberty, civic friendship, and service to the common good.
An ardent advocate of the renewal of classical liberal education, he was inaugural director of the first graduate K–12 classical teacher formation program in the U.S. He has founded, developed, supervised, and fundraised for other programs serving education reform, including undergraduate and graduate degrees, K–12 professional and curriculum development services, a center, and a lab school, among other initiatives. He works with teachers and schools across the U.S. and Europe, teaching courses in literature, philosophy, history, and civics, among other areas.
Jeanne works to advance policies and practices that ensure students have access to 21st century education that best meet their needs. She founded and serves as CEO of the Center for Education Reform (CER) which for over 3 decades has influenced critical changes in how US education operates. In 2021, Allen co-founded the Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding and Permissionless education, now the STOP for Education Initiative, to grow the number of outstanding education providers which outperform for underserved students. With her expertise she has advised numerous administrations, state chief executives and policymakers.
Allen began her career on Capitol Hill and was a senior official in the U.S. Department of Education. She has helped education companies to bring about new innovations in teaching and learning and was advisor to the University of Pennsylvania on the creation of its Masters in Education Entrepreneurship program, as well as co-founder of the StartED Accelerator. Jeanne’s writings and commentary on education, politics and culture can be found throughout the media, including in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek and Fox. Her passion for her Italian-American heritage also carries through to her newsletter, Forza for Education, the in Piazza podcast, her most recent publication, The Unfinished Journey; Education and the American Dream.
Active in many spiritual works, Jeanne is Dame in both the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George and the Order of Malta. She has a BA from Dickinson College, an MS from UPenn, four amazing kids, four grandkids, two dogs and one boat Captain-educator-musician husband. They live in Bethesda, Maryland and Chatham, Massachusetts.
Executive Director Krysta DeBoer provides leadership and support to the overall mission, vision, and strategy of the Center for Urban Teaching (CfUT) and oversees development of CfUT’s recruitment, training, and support efforts. Under her leadership, CfUT has expanded its pipeline from eight participants in 2010 to now serving over 1500 prospective teacher candidates across the nation. Krysta’s efforts have also greatly improved organizational sustainability as early on CfUT was 100% reliant on philanthropy and 0% self-funded. Today, CfUT covers at least 40% of the total organizational expenses through earned revenue. Krysta is a graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran College, an alumna of the Center for Urban Teaching, and holds her M.S. in Educational Leadership: Professional Learning from Cardinal Stritch University. Krysta has served as the Executive Director of CfUT for eleven years.
The Center for Urban Teaching (CfUT) recognizes that teacher and leader quality is key to student achievement. The independent, Christian non-profit Milwaukee organization identifies, prepares, and supports high-performing urban teachers and leaders for choice, charter, and public schools. CfUT is an essential member of the school choice ecosystem in Milwaukee. The idea for CfUT’s talent pipeline grew out of a need to solve teacher shortages in the community. CfUT gives aspiring teachers and leaders exposure to schools across the country and practical training and mentoring. It attracts participants representing over 70 universities and recruits them to serve here in Wisconsin. CfUT also provides individualized coaching to new teachers and leaders to boost retention. CfUT’s ground-up model is effectively developing quality teachers and leaders capable of shaping individual students as well as entire schools.
Nancy Donaldson has been involved in classical Christian education since 1992, when she and her husband, Bob, helped found Regents School of Austin. Nancy served Regents as a Latin and science teacher and Interim Grammar School Principal. She also contributed significantly to the development of the curriculum as Curriculum Director and chair of the Curriculum Committee. After leaving Regents, she developed a consulting business to assist schools in implementing a classical Christian education. This led her to Grace Academy, where she served as Head of School from 2005-2008. During that time, she led the school in purchasing a permanent site and developing its main campus. After serving as a teacher and Grammar School principal for an online school, she recognized the need for an online classical Christian school, much like Regents and Grace Academy. She thought, “How hard could it be?” In the fall of 2014, she and her husband, Bob, along with one other couple, founded Wilson Hill Academy, an online classical Christian school serving over 1200 students in grades 4-12 from all over the world. Believing that education is generational, Wilson Hill Academy is committed to bringing the blessings of the Lord to a thousand generations (Psalm 78:1-4). Nancy currently serves as the President of Wilson Hill Academy, defining and implementing the mission of the school by leading a team of administrators, who manage all aspects of running the school.
Nancy has a BS in Zoology from Louisiana State University, and she completed the National Science Foundation Women in Science Graduate Career Development Program in Computer Science through the University of Texas at Austin. She enjoys swimming, cooking, traveling, and spending time with her husband, grown children and their spouses, five grandchildren, and Sweet Pea, her yellow lab.
Ray Girn is founder and CEO of Higher Ground Education, a national network of Montessori schools. Ray began his career as a teacher and curriculum developer, and his work emphasizes the unity of knowledge and agency in education.
David Park is the Founding General Partner at the Global Innovation Fund (GIF), an external venture fund for leading research organizations. Previously, he was Regional Partner at Kairos Ventures, where he supported the investment team and focused on pioneering investments in sectors such as Life Sciences, Biotechnology, and AI. With extensive experience in scientific innovation, David has expertise in materials science, energy, advanced communications, AI/ML, bioscience and medical technologies. He actively advises portfolio companies on strategic direction and operations and engages as a Limited Partner in multiple venture funds and early-stage startups. A proud UCLA alumnus, David is also a philanthropist supporting K-12 education and technology conservation. He founded The Innovation Foundation, is a member of the Forbes Leadership Council, advisory member at Marcellus Wiley's Project Transition, and was recognized as an honorary member of Variety Magazine’s Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs of Silicon Beach.
Advisory board
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Rabbi Abraham Unger
Rabbi Abraham Unger is founding Head of School at Emet Classical Academy in New York City. Within one year, Emet has opened both a middle school and high school to become one of Manhattan's most competitive private schools. Prior to becoming Head of School, Dr. Unger was a tenured professor in the Department of Government and Politics and Wagner College in Staten Island, where he also served as Director of Urban Programs. He was recruited in 2006 as part of a faculty and administrative team to grow Wagner College into a Northeast regional liberal arts leader under an innovative curriculum called The Wagner Plan.
Dr. Unger taught urban policy and oversaw that public administration major. While in Higher Education, Dr. Unger grew a consulting practice structuring public private partnerships in urban economic development. He has published three peer reviewed books on public policy and numerous articles. Dr Unger has also held research appointments at NYU and Fordham University. Before academia, Dr. Unger was Executive Director at the American Friends of Rambam Medical Center and Mosaic Colony of the Arts.
Robert Pondiscio
Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on K–12 education, curriculum, teaching, school choice, and charter schooling. Before joining AEI, Mr. Pondiscio worked at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Core Knowledge Foundation. He was also an adviser and civics teacher at Democracy Prep Public Schools. He began his education career teaching fifth grade at a struggling South Bronx public school in 2002. Before that, he worked in journalism for 20 years, including in senior positions at TIME and BusinessWeek.
He has been extensively published in the popular press, including in the Atlantic, Education Next, the New York Daily News, and the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Pondiscio is the author of How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle over School Choice (Avery, 2019).
Anne Protopappas
Anne Protopappas is an experienced educator from Paris whose career spans 35 years designing and teaching world language curricula in prominent American colleges and K-12 rigorous institutions. Anne’s research interests focus on the interplay between education and democracy with a focus on the cross-cultural praxis of free speech, and the field of international education that she experienced through her multilingual and inter-disciplinary training in Global History, Political Philosophy, and Asian Studies at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Columbia University, and Beijing Language and Culture University.
A French native speaker who is fluent in English and proficient in Chinese, Anne has advanced knowledge of Japanese and Spanish, and she is increasing her expertise in comparative educational models by pursuing a dual master’s in teaching & learning at the Paris Sorbonne and the New Zealand University of Canterbury, along with her IB teaching certification at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Studies in Education.
Anne brings a wealth of experience from teaching a wide range of students of all ages in the Humanities, organizing international trips, advising students, crafting cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary programs for the Language & Culture Institute she created, and inspiring her students to “analyze and question the world” around them while “falling in love with learning.”
Andrew Neumann, Ph.D.
Andrew is an educational entrepreneur, championing the advancement of high-quality faith-based education that is accessible and affordable to all children.
He began his career as a teacher while obtaining his Ph.D. in educational mathematics. In 2006, Andrew joined Open Sky Education and serves as its Executive Chair/CEO. At OSE he has developed and grown HOPE Christian Schools, EAGLE College Prep charter schools, Compass after school programs, the Character Formation Project, and Soaring Education Services.
In addition to leading Open Sky Education, Andrew and his wife Carlee are cofounders of MatchED, a social matching platform that is a hub for personalizing education aligned with a child’s faith, values, passions and learning styles.
He is a nationally recognized speaker on Macro Trends and Innovation in Education, School Choice, and Scaling Innovation in Education. Andrew also serves on the boards of School Choice Wisconsin, and School Choice Wisconsin Action.
Education:
Bachelor of Science inEducational Mathematics, Martin Luther College, 2000
Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts in Educational Mathematics, University of Northern Colorado, 2004
Patrick Wolf
Dr. Patrick J. Wolf is a Distinguished Professor of Education Policy and the 21st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas. Recently he served as Interim Head of the Department of Education Reform. He has led influential studies of private school voucher programs in Washington, DC; Milwaukee, WI; the state of Louisiana; and Delhi, India. Research projects led or co-led by Wolf have received 45 research grants and contracts totaling over $23 million.
He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited five books and over 200 journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports on private school choice, public charter schools, special education, civic values, public management, and campaign finance. Education Week consistently ranks him among the 200 most influential education scholars in the U.S. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and his master’s and doctorate from Harvard University.
Michael Bettersworth
Michael Bettersworth, a native of Texas, currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer at Texas State Technical College (TSTC) and is the Founder of Skills Engine. Over the past 25 years, Michael has been a key figure at the intersection of workforce and education. His most notable achievement is his instrumental role in designing the nation's first higher education funding model based entirely on student earning outcomes.
This innovative approach has led to TSTC being the only college in the country paid on commission by the taxpayer, rather than seat time. Michael's academic credentials include a Master's degree in Communication Studies and a Bachelor's in Telecommunication from Baylor University. He has authored over 25 studies on emerging careers and technologies and their relevance to Texas business and industry. Michael also holds a patent in machine learning for text-to-skill translation and is a respected advisor on workforce and education policy, shaping industry standards with his expertise.
MacKenzie Price
MacKenzie Price, co-founder of 2hrLearning and Alpha Schools, is revolutionizing K-12 education. Her 2hr Learning platform harnesses the power of AI to offer students personalized, mastery learning, allowing them to spend just 2 hours a day on academics while scoring in the top 2% nationally, freeing up most of their day to pursue passions, learn life skills and do project-based workshops.
Price shares her ideas about reimagining education with her considerable social media presence, including her 300K followers on Instagram, her YouTube channel and through her top-rated Future ofEducation podcast (top 5 Apple podcast in Kids & Family). Price sits on theForbes Technology Council. She serves as an education consultant for critically acclaimed learning apps and participated in Harvard-led research focusing on student motivation.
A Stanford University grad with a BA in Psychology, Price lives in Austin, Texas with her family.
Lindsey Burke
As Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, Lindsey Burke overseesHeritage’s research on issues pertaining to preschool, K-12, and higher education reform. Burke’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science Quarterly and Educational Research and Evaluation, and her commentary and op-eds have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers.
In 2021, Burke was tapped to join Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s transition steering committee and landing team for education and was appointed to the Board of Visitors of George Mason University. Burke also teaches a course on education policy at Pepperdine University on foundational philosophies and practices. She is a fellow with Ed Choice, the legacy foundation of Milton and Rose Friedman, on the board of the Educational Freedom Institute, and on the advisory board of the IWF’s Education Freedom Center. Burke holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Hollins University, a Master of Teaching from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in education policy from George Mason University.
Jeremy Tate
Jeremy Wayne Tate is the founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test and a national leader in there vival of classical education. He has been featured on Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, and the New York Times. Prior to founding CLT, Jeremy served as Director of College Counseling at Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, Maryland.
He received his Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from Louisiana State University and a Masters in Religious Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary. Jeremy and his wife, Erin, reside in Annapolis, Maryland with their six children. You can find Jeremy on Twitter @JeremyTate41.
Ian Rowe
Ian Rowe is a senior fellow at theAmerican Enterprise Institute, focusing on education, upward mobility, family formation, and adoption. He co-founded Vertex Partnership Academies, a virtues-based, International Baccalaureate high school in the Bronx, and the National Summer School Initiative, serves as chairman of the board at Spence-Chapin, and is a senior visiting fellow at the Woodson Center.
Following the publication of his book Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for All Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power (Templeton Press, 2022), Mr. Rowe leads AEI’s FREE Initiative. The FREE Initiative cultivates a deeper understanding of how family, religion, education, and entrepreneurship weave together a moral fabric that shapes and develops agency in children.
Frederick Hess
Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on K–12 and higher education issues. He’s the author of Education Week’s iconic blog “Rick Hess Straight Up” and Education Next’s popular “Old School with Rick Hess.” Dr. Hess is also an executive editor of Education Next, a Forbes senior contributor, and a contributing editor to NationalReview. He is the founder and chairman of AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network.
An educator, political scientist, and author, Dr. Hess has published in several scholarly outlets, such as American Politics Quarterly, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Teachers College Record, and Urban Affairs Review. His work has also appeared in popular outlets including the Atlantic, National Affairs, the Dispatch, Fox News, the NewYork Times, USAToday, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
His books include Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College (TeachersCollege Press, 2024), The Great School Rethink (Harvard Education Press, 2023), A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education (TeachersCollege Press, 2021), Letters to a Young Education Reformer (Harvard Education Press, 2017), The Cage-Busting Teacher (Harvard Education Press, 2015), Breakthrough Leadership in theDigital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling (Corwin, 2013), Cage-Busting Leadership (HarvardEducation Press, 2013), The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday’s Ideas (Harvard University Press, 2010), Education Unbound: The Promise andPractice of Greenfield Schooling (Association forSupervision and Curriculum Development, 2010), Common Sense School Reform (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004), Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
Dr. Hess started his career as a high school social studies teacher. He has taught at the University of Virginia, theUniversity of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He is also the senior founding fellow of the Public Education Foundation’s Leadership Institute of Nevada.
Dr. Hess has an MA and a PhD in government, in addition to an MEd in teaching and curriculum, from Harvard University. He also has a BA in political science from Brandeis University.
Eric Cook
Eric Cook is the President of the Society forClassical Learning (SCL), an organization dedicated to fostering human flourishing through the advancement of classical Christian education. He provides executive leadership for SCL, overseeing the organization’s vision, strategy, thought leadership, and fundraising efforts. As President, Eric plays a pivotal role in the classical Christian school movement, seeking to revive timeless principles to reform education, renew culture, and promote human flourishing.
Eric received an Ed.S. in Classical School Leadership from Gordon College in 2023. He also holds an M.A. in Instructional Leadership from Northern KentuckyUniversity and a B.A. in Education from Transylvania University. He started his career in public school as a history teacher and administrator before moving into classical Christian education as Upper School Head at Faith ChristianSchool in Roanoke, Virginia in 2007. Eric and his wife, Liz, have six children and live in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Ellie Avishai
Elisheva Avishai is a strategist, teacher, and non-profit leader who has worked in education for more than 25 years. Avishai has consulted to school districts across the United States and Canada, with a focus on leadership development and building innovative practices. She is the founder of the I-Think Initiative at the Rotman School of Management inToronto, which teaches integrative thinking to students, teachers, and education leaders across Canada and the United States. She has an MBA from Rotman and a doctorate in education leadership from Harvard.
Elizabeth Spalding
A lifelong educator and frequent public speaker, Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding is Senior Fellow at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, where she teaches religion and politics, and Visiting Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel School of Government, where she teaches courses on the American Presidency, Marxism, and statecraft. Spalding serves as Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), where she is also Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum, and on the Board of the Institute on Religion and Democracy(IRD). She is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War, and her scholarly and popular articles and reviews have been published widely. Spalding lives with her family in Arlington, VA.
Don Soifer
Don Soifer is Chief Executive Officer of the National Microschooling Center, America’s comprehensive resource center, movement-builder and authority for the most exciting new education movement in a generation. He co-created and co-directed the Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy, the nation’s first public–private partnership microschool with the City of North Las Vegas, delivering unprecedented academic growth for that community.
Soifer previously served as President of Nevada Action for School Options, an award-winning nonpartisan“action tank” he founded in 2017.
He previously served asExecutive Vice President of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Arlington, VA that he cofounded in 1998, where he directed the institute’s education and other domestic-policy research programs.
Soifer earned a record as one of the nation’s most accomplished charter school authorizers, serving on the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board from 2008-2019and the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority from 2019-2021.
David Kirby
David is an entrepreneur, school founder, developer, and scholar. He founded Acton Academy of Washington, DC, and serves as the executive director of Acton Academy Foundation. For the last decade, David has organized the annual Acton Children’s Business Fair of Washington, DC, which has grown to one of the largest children’s entrepreneurship events in the country serving 125 young entrepreneurs with over 5,000 attendees each year. David is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, conducting field experiments, studying governance, and researching public opinion. Currently, David is working to develop walkable towns in school-choice states where families and innovative schools can flourish. He is an occasional public speaker and his views have been featured by the media in print, podcasts, and video. Follow David’s work here.
David Bobb
For more than 20 years David Bobb has been one of the leading advocates for strong civics and history education in the United States.
David joined the Bill of Rights Institute (BRI) in 2013. Under his leadership, the Institute increased by four-fold the number of teachers and students it serves. With more than 75,000 teachers nationwide in its network who serve 7.5 million students, BRI is the nation’s leading provider of free, open educational resources for civics and history classrooms.
David serves on the advisory board for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s National Civics Bee and on the Implementation Consortium for Educating for Democracy, a cross-ideological roadmap for civic learning and engagement.
Author of Humility: An Unlikely Biography of America’s Greatest Virtue (Harper Collins, 2013), and a chapter on Frederick Douglass in a 2019 volume published by Oxford University Press, David has written for the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company, among numerous other publications. Currently he is writing a book on the future of civics.
David earned a Ph.D. in political science from Boston College.
Colleen Dippel
Colleen Dippel began her career as a public-schoolteacher. Colleen is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of FamiliesEmpowered, a Texas based not for profit parent service organization. Families Empowered has provided K-12 school navigation services to over 108K low-income families in Texas.
Colleen was a 2013 LEE Emerging Political Leadership Fellow and a 2017 Pahara-Aspen Fellowship recipient. She served on the Advisory Board of the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program at theJones School of Business. She is a member of the John Cooper School Booster Club Board and the Dyslexia School of Houston Board. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board of the Thrive with Autism Charter School. She and her daughter are active participants in The Woodlands TX chapter of the National Charity League.
She considers being a mother to her two children her greatest accomplishment.
Christopher Perrin
Christopher Perrin, MDiv, PhD, is the CEO with Classical Academic Press, and a national leader, author, and speaker for the renewal of classical education. He is the author of An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents, Greek for Children Primer A, The Scholé Way: Bringing Restful LearningBack to School and Homeschool, and co-author of The Good Teacher: Ten Key Pedagogical Principles that Will TransformYour Teaching, as well as the Latin for Children series.
He serves as a consultant to classical Christian schools, schools converting to the classical model, and homeschool co-ops. He is the board president of the Alcuin Fellowship, former co-chair of the Society for Classical Learning, and an adjunct professor with the honor's program at Messiah College and with the Classical School Leadership master’s program at Gordon College. Chris previously served for ten years as a headmaster of a classical Christian school in Harrisburg, PA.
Chris Cerf
Mr. Cerf served as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, Superintendent of the Newark, New Jersey public schools and New Jersey’s Commissioner ofEducation. Co-founder of the NationalSummer School Initiative, he continues to serve as board chair. Other non-profit boards include Excellence inEducation, NJCan, and the Uplands Center Foundation.
In the private sector, Mr. Cerf sits on several boards and previously served as President and COO of Edison Schools,Inc and CEO of Amplify Insight. He earlier served as Associate Counsel toPresident Clinton and as a partner in two Washington, D.C., law firms. A graduate of Amherst College and Columbia Law School, Mr. Cerf also was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Prior to attending law school, he spent four years as a high school history teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Benjamin J. Lindquist
Ben Lindquist spent the past 28 years engaged in missional work advancing the growth of school choice nationally. He is a cofounder and executive partner of Arcadia Education. He can be reached by cell phone at 720-933-1699 or by email at bjlgenx@gmail.com.
For eleven of those years, Lindquist served as a school founder, board chair, and director starting public charter schools and expanding CMOs with a focus on underserved communities. From 1998 to 2001, he served as co-director of the Chicago International Charter School, the largest public charter school network in Illinois. From 2010 to 2015, he served as founder and executive director of Exalt Education, which grew to span three campuses serving 850 students in grades K-8.
For ten of the past 28 years, Lindquist served in philanthropic grant making roles with the Walton Family Foundation, on the founding team of the Charter School Growth Fund, and at the Kern Family Foundation. In those positions, he provided planning, startup, capacity-building, and strategic planning assistance to K12 institutions, national policy organizations, think tanks, state charter school associations, and resource centers at various stages of development.
From 2017 to 2020, Lindquist served as president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. He holds a 2009 MBA from the Leeds School of Business at theUniversity of Colorado – Boulder and a 1996 bachelor’s degree in English with honors from St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict in CentralMinnesota. In 2021 and early 2022, he completed 12 courses towards a masters in executive ministry at Colorado Christian University. He lives in Lakewood, CO, with his wife and son.
Arcadia Education Group is a consulting firm that commenced operations in May 2022. Its national mission is to support the flourishing of civil society by strengthening the operations and culture of schools, especially those dedicated to intellectual, moral, and aesthetic excellence. Arcadia provides targeted consulting to PK-16 schools and networks centered around four service area: talent search, business planning, team health, and operations. Lindquist leads Arcadia’s business planning team.
Barbara Oakley
Barbara Oakley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. She created and teaches Coursera’s “Learning How to Learn,” one of the world’s most popular massive open online course with over three million registered students, along with other popular “Top Online Courses of All Time.”
Barb is a New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times—her book A Mind for Numbers has sold over a million copies worldwide. She is the winner of the McGraw Prize—the colloquial “Nobel Prize for Education” and is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Amar Kumar
Amar Kumar is the founder of KaiPod Learning, an organization that helps teachers start their own microschools. In the past few years, KaiPod Learning has become the fastest growing microschool network in the country supporting dozens of teachers in bringing their education dreams to reality. In his past experience, Amar was a school teacher, a principal, and the head of product for one of the largest online schools in the country.
support our work
To make this vision a reality, we will incubate the curriculum, faculty, programming, and partnerships for CEPS, culminating with the full-scale launch of the Center.
UATX has already secured generous seed gifts totaling $1.5 million and are looking for an additional $6.5 million to launch and scale this new Center over the balance of this decade.
During the Incubation Phase (2024 - 2026), we will:
During the Scaling Phase (2026 - 2030), we will:
Investment opportunities include:
The link above leads to the general UATX donation page. If you would like to make a gift towards the Center for Education and Public Service, please be sure to let us know in the notes section of your donation.