GOOD 100: Meet Jonas Chartock, Teacher Leadership Advocate

Jonas Chartock is a CEO, policy advisor, education reformer, and a member of several old-timey musical acts. When not playing the guitar or the washboard, the former Executive Director of SUNY’s Charter School Institute heads up Leading Educators, a nonprofit dedicated to developing teacher leadership. Their programs in New Orleans and Kansas City, Missouri have yielded such great results that they are expanding to Washington, D.C. and developing their online presence to build a community of teacher-leaders nationwide.

Chartock served as the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the Charter School Policy Institute (CSPI) in Austin, Texas since 2005, providing strategic and tactical leadership to the organization, managing all daily operations, and executing the policies of the CSPI board of directors.

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He got his start as a teacher for Teach for America in the Compton Unified School District in Compton, California and worked his way up to serve as Teach for America’s Executive Director in Houston, Texas. He has also served on the boards of the British-American Project and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

Chartock says his biggest project this year will be to bring the power of teacher leadership to the forefront of the country’s discussion on education reform. Results from the 2011-2012 school year, Leading Educators’ first year of national operation, show that students of teams led by Leading Educators demonstrate growth at higher rates than their peers.

“In Kansas City, these students grew five times more than their counterparts across the district,” Chartock says. “And in New Orleans, the students grew 12 times more.”

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