Charter School Indicators - USC (formerly MMACCS)

Statewide Advisory Board

Fred Ali has been the president and chief administrative officer of the Weingart Foundation since 1999. The Weingart Foundation is among the nation's leading philanthropic institutions, making grants in Southern California. After graduating from Santa Clara University in 1972, Fred began his career as a volunteer teacher and counselor in a small Yupik Eskimo village in western Alaska. Over the next 19 years he held a number of key positions in Alaska, including deputy director of the State Employment and Training Agency, president of Kuskokwim Community College, and vice chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and the founding executive director of Covenant House Alaska. In 1991, he became the executive director of Covenant House in Los Angeles, and developed a large multi-service program working with homeless youth in Hollywood and Oakland.

Carol Barkley is the director of the Charter Schools Division for the California State Department of Education. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Barkley was served as the department's project director for the federal Public Charter Schools Grant program, securing almost $200 million dollars in funding to assist new charter schools with planning and initial implementation costs for new charter schools. She has also worked in the field of career technical education, where she created a leadership development institute for new career-technical education administrators, and recognition program for model practices developed in regional occupational centers and programs (ROCP). Prior to state service, Ms. Barkley served as the director of two domestic violence programs in central and northern California, and as the director of counseling in a southern California high school.

Steve Barr founded Green Dot Public Schools in 1999 and built one of the first comprehensive public high schools in the Los Angeles area in 30 years. Under Steve's leadership, Green Dot has opened three new charter high schools in four years. He is a California State Board of Education appointee to the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools, and is a founding member of the Charter Leadership Council. Steve hosted President Clinton's National Service Inaugural event, which led to the founding of Americorps. In the spring of 1998, Steve joined technology leaders and education reform advocates from the Silicon Valley in forming Californians for Public School Excellence (CPSE).

M. Magdalena Carrillo Mejia is superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District. Previously, she was superintendent of Montebello Unified School District. Dr. Mejia began her career in education as a high school teacher, and she later served in a variety of district curriculum administrative positions. Dr. Mejia was the recipient of the first annual Administrator of the Year award from the California Association for Bilingual Education. She has also received recognition as the Milken National Educator of the Year; State Senator Martha Escutia's Woman of the Year for the 30th State Senate District, and was recipient of the LULAC Educator of the Year award.

Carl A. Cohn serves as the superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District. Prior to this, Dr. Cohn was the longest serving superintendent of any large, urban district in the nation during his 10-year tenure as head of the Long Beach Unified School District. After retiring from Long Beach, he became a clinical professor at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. Dr. Cohn was appointed independent monitor to oversee the special education consent decree in the Los Angeles school system, and has served as a board member of the National Assessment Governing Board. He has worked as a faculty advisor for the Broad Superintendents Academy, and as an executive search consultant for the California School Boards Association. He also serves on the boards of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, the Wallace Foundation Education Leadership Advisory Committee, and the National Heritage Academy. Dr. Cohn is a recipient of the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education.

Jacqueline Duvivier Castillo is Director of Business and Development Services for PUC Schools (Partnerships to Uplift Communities). PUC is a non-profit charter school management organization designed to significantly increase college entrance and graduation rates for underserved students in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Jacqueline works with its CEOs to build an efficient and effective delivery of operational services to its network of schools. Former posts include Director of Education for the California region of the National Council of La Raza's Center for Community Educational Excellence where she spearheaded the Charter School Development Initiative (CSDI), as well as the Early College Project (ECP). Jacqueline began her career in Santiago, Chile as a middle school teacher and assistant principal at the Grange British Academy. She subsequently coordinated early education programs for the U.S. State Department's American School in Guatemala. More recently, she was Director for native language instruction programs for the New Rochelle, NY public school district.

David N. Plank is executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a policy research consortium based in Berkeley. Before coming to PACE he was a professor at Michigan State University, where he founded and directed the Education Policy Center. In addition to his work in the U.S., Dr. Plank has worked as a consultant on policy issues for a wide variety of international organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, UNESCO, USAID, OECD, and the Ford Foundation, as well as governments in Africa and Latin America. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and reports on topics including school finance, accountability policies, and school choice.

William E. B. Siart is chairman of the board of Excellent Education Development (ExED), a nonprofit corporation that develops and manages charter public schools. Mr. Siart is the former chairman and chief executive officer of First Interstate Bancorp. He is chairman of the board of Walt Disney Concert Hall, Inc. He is a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, and The Music Center Foundation. Mr. Siart is a member of the board of trustees of the University of Southern California, and the Catholic Education Foundation. He is also a member of California Business for Education Excellence, and the Education Committee of the California Business Roundtable. Mr. Siart serves as co-chairman of Just for the Kids, California.

Lee Walcott has been vice-president and managing director of The Ahmanson Foundation since 1987 and is currently serving as a trustee of the Foundation. From 1970 to 1986 he served Marlborough School as instructor of art history, chair of the Fine Arts Department, and director of the Upper School. He later joined the faculty at Campbell Hall School in North Hollywood as an instructor of mathematics and art history. He also served on the National Test Development Committee for the College Board and as a reader of history of art examinations for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Mr. Walcott's professional affiliations include serving as a trustee of Marlborough School, a member of the Advisory Board of PUTENE (a statewide program of the University of California and the California Colleges), and a member of the advisory board of the William Andrews Clark Library, an organized research unit of UCLA.

Johnathan Williams is the founder and current board member of The Accelerated Charter School. Johnathan began his teaching career with the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1990 and was elected as union chairman of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, where he was later elected to the UTLA House of Representatives. In 1994 he founded The Accelerated School, the first charter school in South-Central Los Angeles. In 2001, The Accelerated Charter School was named TIME magazine's " Elementary School of Year." Mr. Williams has also been honored by former President Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley, as well as by President George W. Bush and U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Mr. Williams serves on the board of directors for the California Charter Schools Association, and on the California Advisory Commission on Charter Schools. He was recently appointed to the California State Board of Education.

Caprice Young is the CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, California's charter school membership association, which works to increase student achievement by strengthening and expanding public charter schools throughout California. Caprice has a strong track record in education reform, serving from 1999-2003 as a member and president of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Her professional experience spans higher education, business and government, including director of corporate and foundation relations for the Anderson School at UCLA; strategy consulting group manager of IBM's West Coast e-Business Innovations Design Center; and, assistant deputy mayor for the City of Los Angeles.