About Us

The Executive Team

Executive Leadership

Jean Desravines
Chief Officer for Cities and Policy
Jean Desravines serves as the Chief Officer for Cities and Policy. Before joining New Leaders for New Schools, he served as Senior Counselor to the Chancellor for Public and Community Affairs. In that capacity, he developed and executed a community relations strategy to engage and communicate with various stakeholders. Jean has had over 15 years of experience working with parents and communities on education issues and community development with a primary focus on service delivery to the disadvantaged in underserved communities. At the Department of Education (DoE), Jean also served as the Executive Director for the Office of Parent and Community Engagement (OPCE), Chief of Staff to the Senior Counselor for Education Policy, and the Director for Community Relations. As the Executive Director of OPCE, he was responsible for conceiving, developing, and implementing the plan to oversee the hiring and training of over 1,200 Parent Coordinators, a key element of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein's Children First reforms. In his capacity as Chief of Staff to the Senior Counselor for Education Policy, he assisted in developing a secondary reform plan and worked with the Office of Youth Development to identify intervention strategies and best practices to re-engage older high school students who are under-credited. As the Director for Community Relations, he oversaw the delivery of over $2 million in grants to community-based organizations that provided after-school programming to disadvantaged youth in underserved communities. Jean has a degree in History from St. Francis College and an MPA in Management from New York University, receiving the Dean's Scholarship-the school's most prestigious scholarship.

Benjamin Fenton
Chief School Performance Support Officer and Co-Founder
Ben leads the development of our national and local strategies to support the performance of schools led by New Leaders principals, all in service of reaching our goals for student achievement. He works closely with program leaders from across the organization and with the local Executive Directors to learn from our current school support work and plan for new support initiatives. Previously, Ben served as a Chief Cities Officer, managing and supporting all of the local program sites for New Leaders for New Schools, and as Chief Operating Officer, managing the financial and technology operations for the organization. Prior to New Leaders for New Schools, Ben worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, where he focused on marketing and operational efficiency. While at McKinsey he also began his work in education, serving the Laughlin Children's Center as a nonprofit client. As a graduate student, Ben led the business planning process for the original design of New Leaders for New Schools, and he was a member of the founding team of the organization. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Business School, where he received the Fiske award for excellence in teaching in the Economics Department.

Julie Horowitz
Chief External Affairs Officer
Julie joined New Leaders for New Schools as Chief External Affairs Officer in October, 2008. Most recently, Julie served as Executive Director of the Young Women's Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit that supports a network of all-girls' schools. Previously, she was Chief of Staff to the Deputy Chancellor for Operations at the NYC Department of Education, where she also participated in The Broad Foundation's "Residency in Urban Education." Julie holds a BA and an MBA from Yale University. A product of the NYC public schools, she began her career as a teacher in NYC and South Africa, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. After business school, she worked as an education industry analyst on Wall Street, and then held business development positions for three education companies, including Edison Schools. Julie is currently a Board member, and Development Committee Chair, for the Fortune Society, a prisoner re-entry organization. Additionally, she is an Advisory Board Member of Citizen Schools NY, and a fellow of the British American Project.

Dianne Morse Houghton
Chief Community Products Officer
In her role, Dianne oversees New Leaders' Effective Practices Incentive Community (EPIC) grant program; a 90 million dollar program funded by the Department of Education, and private funders spanning four school districts, and a consortium of charter schools across the country to identify schools and educators driving student achievement gains, and reward these schools for sharing their effective practices. Dianne brings almost 25 years of experience in organizational process and infrastructure design, operations, and executive leadership to her new role at New Leaders. Over her career she has been a technical and management consultant with Booz Allen and Hamilton, Honeywell, and Arthur Andersen, working with many Fortune 100 and government executives to create and launch strategic initiatives and new organizational units. Dianne then moved into executive roles within services-oriented enterprises, most recently as the turn-around CEO of Digital Focus, an information technology services company. Dianne combines her technology, education, and community interests by serving as Chair of the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee for Fairfax County Public Schools, as a member of the Superintendent's Business Advisory Council, and as a steering committee member and fundraising chair for the Girls in Technology charitable organization. Dianne has her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, her MBA from William and Mary, and is co-author of the book Vision, Values, and Courage.

David Kuizenga
Chief Administrative Officer
David is responsible for the growth and development of the organization's financial, technology, and legal functions, ensuring that systems, processes, and tools support New Leader's colleagues and programs. Mr. Kuizenga has 20 years of experience in operational management, strategic organizational development, fiscal planning, and IT strategy and implementation. Prior to joining New Leaders, David was COO of Transitcenter, a New York based national nonprofit formed to encourage the use of mass transit. David has held senior executive positions at Marsh, a leading risk and insurance services firm; Driveskills, a 3D educational software firm; and the Inter-Insurance Bureau of the California State Automobile Association. David shares a deep commitment to social activism that has led to volunteer work on the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Board and tutoring adult education classes in New York City. David has an MBA from the Atkinson School of Management at Willamette University.

Darlene Merry
Chief Academic Officer
Darlene serves as the chief academic officer and head of the Aspiring Principals Program. Her specific areas of focus are to ensure that the New Leaders' recruitment, selection, training, and development model prepares our principals to lead schools that promote high levels of academic achievement and success for every child. Before joining New Leaders, Darlene served as a teacher, principal, and associate superintendent for organizational development in Montgomery County, Maryland. She received her undergraduate degree in English at Bowling Green University, her master's degree in counseling at The George Washington University, and she is a doctoral student in leadership and policy studies at The University of Maryland. Her husband is a high school teacher and her son is a middle school student.

Jon Schnur
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Jon works with the New Leaders for New Schools' team and community to accomplish our mission- driving high levels of learning and achievement for every child by attracting, preparing, and supporting the next generation of outstanding principals for our nation's urban schools. Since co-founding New Leaders for New Schools, he has led the development of the organization's strategy, management team and board, core values, partnerships, and fundraising. Jon has served as Special Assistant to Secretary of Education Richard Riley, President Clinton's White House Associate Director for Educational Policy, and Senior Advisor on Education to Vice President Gore. He has developed national educational policies on teacher and principal quality, after-school programs, district reform, charter schools, and preschools. Jon graduated from Princeton University and a Wisconsin public high school. He lives in New York City with his wife Elisa and their children Matthew and Elizabeth.

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan
President
LaVerne Srinivasan joined New Leaders for New Schools as President of the organization in November 2006. Previously, she served under Joel Klein as the Deputy Chancellor for Operations for the New York City Public Schools. LaVerne's commitment to student opportunity and strong educational leadership was honed at the Department of Education through her direction of the Office of Student Enrollment and Planning Operations and the Division of Human Resources, where she led the reorganization of the Division of Human Resources into a strategic function and directed the creation of a new office of student enrollment planning and operations, which rolled out a new, city-wide high school admissions process. Prior to joining the education sector, LaVerne was the Senior Vice President of Legal and Business Affairs and General Counsel for BMG Entertainment.

Rod Washington
Chief People and Community Development Officer
As Chief People and Community Development Officer, Rod leads efforts to develop and formalize organizational systems and culture which will attract, develop, and retain outstanding and diverse staff members and leaders across all levels of the organization. Rod recently completed doctoral coursework at Columbia in Organizational Leadership and Strategy, while concurrently serving as Executive Director on the Human Harmony Project- a national social change collaborative that brought together hundreds of diverse organizations to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the United Nations 1995 International Year for Tolerance. He has nearly 20 years of organizational development/human resources/strategy consulting experience including serving as Managing Director of Emergent Consulting Group, where he led the organizational development/corporate development practice and specialized in the Media, Arts, and Technology sectors. As Co-Founder/CEO of two companies, he understands firsthand the demands of growing an organization to scale. He also founded Equal Access (a minority education initiative), and is VP/COO of College Kids (a program designed to help grade-school children from low-income communities get into and through college), and as President of Re-Imagine.org. Rod also has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a degree in Divinity from Golden Gate Theological Seminary.

Executive Directors

Peter Kannam
Executive Director, Baltimore
Peter is the former Executive Director of Teach for America-Baltimore. He worked in partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS) to place and support more than 280 teachers in 50 BCPSS schools during his tenure from 1999-2003. Before serving as Executive Director, Peter taught 8th grade Social Studies in BCPSS at Lombard Middle School from 1993 until 1998. From 2003 to early 2005, Peter served as the New England Regional Director for Catapult Learning and oversaw all aspects of the regional operations that serve over 1,500 students in four cities across New England: Boston, Providence, Hartford, and Springfield, Massachusetts. Peter is a 1993 graduate of Bates College where he majored in History, earned a Master's of Science in Administration Supervision from Johns Hopkins University in 1999, and was a candidate for a doctoral degree in Urban Teacher Development and Leadership at Johns Hopkins University. Peter is also the proud father of three young sons ages 5, 3, and 5 months.

Michael Moore
Executive Director, Bay Area
Michael Moore is an instructional and organizational leader, bringing to New Leaders thirty-years of successful experience in schools. Mike served as a teacher, high school principal, and Superintendent of Schools and also played a prominent role in state-level policy work in Maine, leading the state's NCLB steering committee and spurring interest in streamlining district-level governance. Through his doctoral work and his superintendencies, he has focused on developing school leaders as a key lever for driving academic achievement. Mike has three areas of responsibility in the Bay Area: creating strategies for whole school performance support; building a team of experts in school leadership to recruit, train, and retain superior principals; and building a regional coalition to expand New Leaders' work in the region. His experience will be leveraged through his partnership with Rod Washington and the entire Bay Area team.

Maggie Blinn
Executive Director, Chicago
Before joining the New Leaders for New Schools team, Ms. Maggie Blinn was a strong advocate, partner, and supporter of New Leaders. Ms. Blinn began her association with New Leaders in 2003 while working for the Chicago Public Education Fund (CPEF) on their Chicago Public Schools Principal Program Investment project. Her work with CPEF included assisting the creation of the Office of Principal Preparation and Development (OPPD) and the district-wide principal eligibility process. In 2005, Ms. Blinn went to work at OPPD as Deputy Chief Officer.

Prior to her work at Chicago Public Schools and CPEF, Ms. Blinn was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she worked with corporate management teams to plan and implement strategies for achieving a superior competitive position. Before that, she practiced law at Sidley, Austin Brown & Wood in the corporate securities group.

Ms. Blinn earned her J.D. cum laude from the University of Chicago, and graduated with the highest honors with a B.S. in accounting from the University of Illinois at Champaign.

Janice Crawford
Executive Director, Memphis
Janice has returned to Memphis after serving as a Senior Fellow with the Ball Foundation, outside of Chicago. The Foundation partners with urban school districts to help create high performance education systems in which all children learn at high levels regardless of race, national origin, socioeconomic status, native language, or culture. Her experience includes implementing principles of whole system transformation with school and district staff, strategic planning, and supporting professional learning communities. Prior to joining the Foundation, Janice served as Executive Director for Communications and Administrative Services for Memphis City Schools, where she also taught high school English. Janice has also worked for the Los Angeles County Office of Education and Chancellor's Office and the California State University System. She received her BA in journalism/education/English from the University of Memphis and MA in public relations/education from Rowan College.

Tonieh Schmitz
Executive Director, Milwaukee
Tonieh Schmitz is the founding Milwaukee Executive Director of New Leaders for New Schools. Prior to New Leaders, Tonieh served in numerous roles in the Milwaukee Public Schools and other education non-profits. She started a number of programs from the ground up, including leading the development of the first group of Community Learning Centers in Milwaukee Public Schools, a school-based student and family involvement program that was eventually replicated across more than 50 MMilwaukee public schools. As part of this initiative, she led fundraising efforts, student recruitment and enrollment, marketing, parent communications, event planning, parent leadership, and volunteer development. Growing out of that experience, she has also acted as an Interim Director for the College Readiness 21 Program (through the Wisconsin Foundation of Independent Colleges) and was the Director of Education Programs at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. For several years, Tonieh worked with Rethinking Schools as an Associate Editor and later as a marketing consultant. Tonieh has taught elementary education and Spanish at multiple phases of her career, and has been actively involved in a major facilities upgrade and leadership selection at a city-wide, dual-language school where she had been a teacher and program coordinator. She is now a proud parent of three children. Tonieh graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Elementary Education.

Tyra Newell
Executive Director, New Orleans
As Executive Director of the New Orleans team, Tyra is responsible for the development and successful execution of a strategy to drive high academic gains in schools led by New Leaders in New Orleans. Tyra joins New Leaders having served most recently as Budget Director for Chicago Public Schools (CPS). She entered CPS through the Broad Residency in Urban Education, a competitive two-year national program that seeks to provide a pipeline of talent to build leadership capacity in urban public school districts. As a Broad Resident, she led the implementation of strategies to address overcrowding and increase the quality of principal candidates within the district. Her experiences include both public and private sector work, including Kraft Foods Corporate Training and Development, where she focused on providing effective training programs as well team development and personal efficiency strategies. Her work at McKinsey & Co. as a management consultant allowed her to gain exposure to a broad set of management issues in a variety of industries. She received a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Howard University and an MBA from Stanford University. Tyra was born and raised in New Orleans and looks forward to making a greater contribution towards building high quality education for all New Orleans' children.

Mashea Ashton
Executive Director, New York City
Mashea Ashton is Executive Director for the New York Program and Senior Advisor for Charter School Policy. Mashea last served as the Executive Director for Charter Schools for the New York City Department of Education. As head of the Charter Schools Office, Mashea set the vision and policy direction of nearly 50 charter schools throughout the Big Apple and supported the city's unprecedented $130 million effort to open 200 new small schools, including 58 new charter schools. Mashea formerly served as the National Director of Recruitment and Selection for the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). Prior to taking this role, Mashea was the Midwest Director of Business Development, where she worked to establish and maintain relationships with key decision makers in Chicago, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Detroit to support the development of KIPP schools. Prior to joining KIPP, Mashea worked at Leadership for Quality Education's Charter School Resource Center. Mashea served several years as a special education teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia and Washington, D.C. She serves on the board of the National Association of Public Charters Schools and is a founding board member for the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Mashea has a MEd in Special Education and a BA in Sociology and Elementary Education from the College of William and Mary. She joins New Leaders because of the commitment to supporting our leaders to get dramatic results for the students they serve.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett
Executive Officer, Washington, D.C.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett is the new Executive Officer of New Leaders for New Schools- D.C. Program. She is an experienced educator, supervisor, administrator, and respected authority on urban education and serves as the Superintendent in Resident for Harcourt School and as an Executive-In-Residence for Cleveland State University. She began her career with the New York City Board of Education where she taught at the elementary and high school level. In New York City, she also served as a school principal and the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development. She has been an adjunct professor at Malcolm King College in Harlem, City College in New York City, the College of New Rochelle, and Fordham University.

Barbara served as Superintendent of the Crown Heights/Flatbush School District in Brooklyn, New York where she is credited with reestablishing order and instructional focus during an 'administrative takeover' of the district. Prior to that, she was the Supervising Superintendent of the Chancellor's District in New York City, responsible for the direct oversight of the lowest performing schools in the New York City Public School System where she is credited with dramatic improvements in student achievement. She left New York City to accept the appointment to serve as the first Chief Executive Officer of the largest school district in the state of Ohio, the Cleveland Municipal School District.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett is a member of numerous boards, commissions, and advisory councils, including the United States Department of Education National Assessment Governing Board; the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Ohio Governor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success; the Superintendent in Residence for Harcourt School Publishers; the Aspen Institute Scholars; the Board of Directors for the Albert Shanker Institute; and the transition teams for the Governor of Ohio and New York state. She served as the President of the Urban Superintendents' Association of America.

Barbara is the recipient of numerous local, state, and national honors including the Council of Greater City Schools 2001 Urban Superintendent of the Year. Her passion for education stems from one relentless goal: success for each child in each classroom in each school.

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