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National Board Certified Teacher Geneviève DeBose and Education Advocate Dan Leeds Named as Commissioners of NCTAF
WASHINGTON, DC – January 5, 2015 – The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) is pleased to announce that National Board Certified Teacher Geneviève DeBose and education advocate Dan Leeds are joining the organization as commissioners.
“We are so delighted to incorporate these two education leaders into the work of the Commission,” said Melinda George, president of NCTAF. “Geneviève and Dan each bring a unique perspective that will be instrumental as NCTAF launches a national effort to support good teaching, identify solutions, and make research-based recommendations to positively impact the teaching profession at the local, state, and national levels.”
DeBose is an educator, artist, and activist who has taught middle school in Los Angeles, Oakland, and the South Bronx for over a decade. She currently teaches 7th grade English Language Arts at a public middle school in the Bronx. DeBose started her teaching career as a 1999 Teach for America corps member and earned her National Board Certification in 2010. Featured in several of Davis Guggenheim’s documentary films on schools and teaching, she consistently demonstrates her belief that learning experiences for children should be culturally relevant, student-centered, and interactive. DeBose was a 2011 U.S. Department of Education Washington Teaching Ambassador Fellow and in 2012 was named one of Education Week‘s “17 Leaders Who Will Shape Education for the Next Generation.”
Dan Leeds is the founder and president of the National Public Education Support Fund, which organizes the Education Funder Strategy Group and international study tours of high performing education systems for policy makers, practitioners, business executives and philanthropic leaders. He helped found the Alliance for Excellent Education, which he currently chairs. He is also on the Board of the PBS Foundation. His international technology media background, together with these philanthropic efforts, lead him to support a vision of a nation with a prosperous and harmonious society, based on all children having the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education that prepares them for successes in college, career, life and citizenship.
“The addition of Dan and Geneviève to the Commission makes us stronger, smarter, and more diverse in our thinking,” said the Honorable Richard W. Riley, co-chair of NCTAF and former U.S. Secretary of Education. “To address the changing culture of schools and the needs of teachers and students, we must bring together the best and brightest minds to help shape long-lasting solutions that will educate and support generations to come.”
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The National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF) was founded in 1994 as a bipartisan effort to engage education policymakers and practitioners to address the entrenched national challenge of recruiting, developing, and retaining good teachers in order to ensure that all students have access to quality teaching in schools organized for success. For 20 years, NCTAF has worked to drive and inform the national dialogue about the importance of good teaching, especially in hard-to-staff schools. NCTAF’s research and recommendations inform innovations and improvements in teaching quality nationwide, focus attention on the importance of equitable distribution and retention of teachers, and promote promising practices for the development of teachers’ skills and career pathways.