Advisory Board

James Comer is the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center, and has been a Yale medical faculty member since 1968. He is known internationally for promoting a focus on child development as a way of improving schools. He founded the Comer School Development Program in 1968, which promotes the collaboration of parents, educators, and community to improve social, emotional, and academic outcomes for children that in turn helps them achieve greater school success. His concept of teamwork has improved the educational environment in more than 500 schools throughout America. 

Among his nine books are Beyond Black and White, Black Child Care, (with Alvin F. Poussaint), Raising Black Children, the autobiographical Maggie's American Dream: The Life and Times of a Black Family, Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can't Solve Our Problems, And How We Can; and Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World. He wrote hundreds of articles for Parents Magazine and for syndicates on children's health and development and race relations.

He was a consultant to the Children’s Television Workshop, producer of Sesame Street and The Electric Company, and to the Public Committee on Mental Health chaired by former First Lady Rosalyn Carter. Comer was a member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. He has testified before many state and congressional committees. He served on ASCD’s Commission on the Whole Child and contributed to its 2007 report. 

He has served on many boards and has garnered 47 honorary degrees and recognitions, including the James Bryant Conant Award from the Education Commission of the States and the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education. A native of East Chicago, Ind., he is a graduate of Indiana University, earned an M.D. in 1960 from the Howard University College of Medicine and an M.P.H. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network. She has served as faculty sponsor of the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and a member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994 to 2001, she served as the executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a blue ribbon panel whose 1996 report, "What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future," led to sweeping policy changes in teaching nationally. In 2006, the report was named one of the most influential in U.S. education, and Darling-Hammond was named one of the 10 most influential people in education policy for the decade. 

Among her more than 300 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press, 2010); Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass, 2006); Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and be Able to Do (with John Bransford, Jossey-Bass, 2005), winner of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Pomeroy Award; Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes; Jossey-Bass, 1999), which received the National Staff Development Council’s Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass, 1st edition, 1997), recipient of AERA’s Outstanding Book Award for 1998.

Karen Mapp is a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research and practice expertise is in the areas of educational leadership and educational partnerships among schools, families, and community members. Previously, she served as interim deputy superintendent of family and community engagement for the Boston Public Schools. 

Mapp also served as president of the Institute for Responsive Education, a research, policy, and advocacy organization that conducts research on and advocates for effective school, family, and community partnerships that support the educational development of children in Boston. She holds a doctorate and master's degree of education from Harvard in administration, planning and social policy; a master's in counselor education from Southern Connecticut State University; and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. 

She is the author of "Making the Connection between Families and Schools," published by the Harvard Education Letter (1997) and "Having Their Say: Parents Describe How and Why They Are Engaged in Their Children's Learning" in the School Community Journal (2002). She also coauthored with Anne Henderson A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement (2002).

Kent McGuire is the president of the Southern Education Foundation, an Atlanta-based organization working to advance fairness and excellence in education across the region. Previously, he served as dean of the College of Education at Temple University and as the director of the Center for Research in Human Development and Education, a university-based research organization focused on effective strategies for educating poor and minority children. 

McGuire also has served as senior vice president at MDRC, where his responsibilities included leadership of the education, children, and youth division. From 1998 to 2001, he served in President Bill Clinton’s administration as an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he was the senior officer for the department’s research and development agency. He was a program officer for education at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia and the Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis, was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, and a senior policy analyst and director of the School Finance Collaborative for the Education Commission of the States. 

He received his doctorate in public administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder, his master’s degree in education administration and policy from Teachers College, Columbia University, and his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Michigan.

Hayes Mizell is the first distinguished senior fellow at Learning Forward, formerly the National Staff Development Council, based in Dallas. Learning Forward is the largest national education organization focused solely on increasing the performance levels of public school educators and their students through professional development. 

Previously, he directed the Program for Student Achievement of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation from 1987 to 2003. Before joining the Clark Foundation, Mizell worked for more than 20 years as an advocate for better public schools in the South, both as a grassroots organizer and a proponent of education policy reform on behalf of disadvantaged students. A former twice-elected school board member in Columbia, S.C., Mizell was appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter as the chairman of the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children and served in that capacity until 1982. 

Mizell played leading roles in founding the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, Grantmakers for Education, and the National Coalition of Advocates for Students. Since 2003, he has written articles, columns, and blogs for various publications of the National Staff Development Council.

Aurelio Montemayor is senior education associate and professional development team leader for IDRA (Intercultural Development Research Association) in Texas. He has extensive experience in working with school personnel, parents, and students. His career in education spans four decades and has included teaching at the high school, middle school, and elementary school levels. 

Montemayor has served as director of the Texas IDRA PIRC (Parent Information and Resource Center) since 1999. He previously directed IDRA’s Educators x Communities = English Language learners’ Success (ExCELS) project, an innovative professional development program that created learning communities of schools, families and communities for English learners’ academic success. He directed IDRA’s work in the national Mobilization for Equity project and led the formation of Families United for Education: Getting Organized (FUEGO) [Familias unidas para la educación: ganando organizadas] -- a Texas network of parents and community members from different backgrounds who work together to achieve the best possible education for all students. 

Montemayor also helped form the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Public Education -- a San Antonio-based coalition of community organizations and individuals who support the use of public money for neighborhood public schools and who oppose any effort to divert public tax funds to subsidize private education. He also led the formation of the Parent Coalition for Bilingual Education, through which parents across the country are supporting bilingual education and developing their leadership skills. 

He received a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, and a master’s degree in bilingual education from Antioch Graduate School of Education in Ohio.

Lyndon L. Olson, Jr. was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1997, to be Ambassador to Sweden and took office in January 1998. Ambassador Olson previously served as the president and chief executive officer of Travelers Insurance Holdings Inc., and the Associated Madison Companies Inc. in New York. He has served as the president of the National Group Corp., and has been president and chief executive officer of the National Group Insurance Company. In addition, he is a cattle rancher and banker.

Ambassador Olson served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1973 until 1978. A few of the awards he has received include: the Distinguished Alumni Award from Baylor University in 1999, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Waco Public Schools in 1998, and the Gates of Jerusalem Award presented by the State of Israel. 

He has served as chair of the following organizations: the Mental Health Association of Texas, the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, the Texas Lyceum Association, the Waco Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Fire & Casualty Companies of Texas, Texas Opera Theater, and the Texas Arts Alliance. He has served on the executive committee of the Houston Grand Opera and the Austin Lyric Opera, the Waco Symphony, the Austin Symphony and the Waco Art Center. He has been the president of the Baylor University Alumni Association, honorary co-chairman of the Fulbright Commission, and has served on the Board of Visitors of the Yale Music School and the Baylor University School of Music. He also has served on the Board of Visitors of the Baylor University School of Business, and is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations and The Philosophical Society of Texas. He serves on the board of trustees for Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas.

Olson also served on the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East, International Board of Advisors. He is a graduate of Baylor University and attended Baylor Law School. He is an elder in the Central Presbyterian Church of Waco, Texas.

In July 2009, he signed into law a school funding plan that called for increasing the state’s share of education funding to more than 60 percent by 2018, lessening reliance on local property taxes. He directed more than $4 billion for school construction and renovation. He helped to pass a new Ohio graduation test that stresses the skills and knowledge students actually need. He pushed for requirements that new teachers be trained to provide more project-based, cooperative and interactive instruction, and the nation’s first-of-its-kind system to ensure better teacher-education programs. His Closing the Achievement Gap initiative helped more at-risk ninth-graders stay in school, and he increased state oversight of charter schools.

Previously, he served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, co-authoring the Children’s Health Insurance Program that provides coverage for millions of children nationwide. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Asbury College in Kentucky, a master’s from Asbury Theological Seminary and a doctorate from the University of Kentucky. He was a Methodist minister and children’s home administrator, and a psychology professor and prison psychologist. In 1987, he married Frances Smith, an educational psychologist.

Governor Winter is best known for leading the charge for publicly-funded primary education as the governor of Mississippi from 1980 to 1984. His governance echoed his belief that all people, regardless of race or class, should be entitled to the same rights and privileges as the most privileged Americans. He is known for his strong support of public education, racial reconciliation, and historic preservation. He successfully pushed for passage of the Mississippi Education Reform Act, the state’s first major effort to improve public education decades -- and, among other things, established public kindergarten. While in law school, he was first elected to the state legislature. He later served as the state tax collector and as state treasurer.

In a substantial way, Governor Winter's accomplishments were honored in 1997 when President Bill Clinton initiated “One America,” an unprecedented national conversation on race. Winter served on the board of One America, helping to bring the only public forum in the Deep South to the University of Mississippi. President Clinton has called Winter a “great champion of civil rights,” and many admirers see Gov. Winter as a guiding light on education and race relations for Mississippi and America.

Born in Grenada (MS), he served in the U.S. Army in World War II and the Korean War. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1943 and finished his law degree there. He has since been awarded several honorary degrees. He also served as the Jamie Whitten Professor of Law and Government at the University of Mississippi School of Law, the Eudora Welty Professor of Southern Studies at Millsaps College; a fellow at the Institute of Politics, Harvard University; and president of the Ole Miss Alumni Association. The William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi is named in his honor. He was chosen for a Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2008. He continues to practice law with the Jackson, Miss., firm of Watkins Ludlum Winter & Stennis P.A., which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005.