The USC Price Center for Social Innovation hosts “Social Innovation and Charter Schools”, the first event in the 2018-19 Pathways to Opportunity series.

The event will feature a panel discussion that explores charter schools as a social innovation that seeks to improve educational outcomes for students. What are the opportunities and challenges for new educational ideas to diffuse within the charter sector, within the district and across the nation? Panelists include Dan Katzir, CEO of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, and Dr. Cristina de Jesus, President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot Public Schools California. The panel will be moderated by visiting professor Dr. Christine M. Beckman.

Speakers:

Dr. Christine M. Beckman (moderator)
Visiting Professor

Christine Beckman is a visiting professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy. She is an Associate Editor at Administrative Science Quarterly and Past Division Chair of the Organization and Management Theory division of the Academy of Management. She previously served on the faculty at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. At Maryland, she was the Academic Director for the Center for Social Value Creation, Diversity Officer, and facilitated a peer network for junior faculty women. At UC Irvine, she was a Chancellor’s Fellow from 2008-2011 and Faculty Director of the Don Beall Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She was the 2006 Western Academy of Management Ascendent Scholar.

Professor Beckman has published over 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is known for her research on organizational learning, interorganizational networks, inequality, and entrepreneurship, particularly on how collaborative relationships and diverse experiences facilitate organizational change. Her research sites are varied and include F500 companies, Silicon Valley start-ups, mutual funds, law firms, the U.S. Navy, German football teams, and American baseball teams. She is currently working on a book project and conducting new research on urban charter schools. She is a native Californian and received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University.

Dan Katzir
CEO, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools

Dan Katzir is the CEO of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a non-profit charter network of 28 high-performing public charter schools that serves 13,000 scholars and 10,000 alumni.

Before joining Alliance, Katzir was a consultant and advisor to CEOs and boards of directors in school districts, charter management organizations, state departments of education, and other K-12 education organizations. For 11 years, Katzir was the founding Managing Director at the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation, where he designed and implemented four national flagship initiatives — the Broad Prize for Urban Education, the Broad Institute for School Boards the Broad Superintendents Academy, and the Broad Residency in Urban Education.

Katzir also served as the Regional Director for Sylvan Learning Systems in Los Angeles, the Executive Director for UCLA School Management Program, and Chief Operating Officer for Teach for America. He began his career as a consultant for Bain & Company, an international management consulting firm.

Dan has served on many education boards, including The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College, Caliber Public Schools, and Progressus Therapy.

Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth College.  He lectures at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and is a Volunteer Leader at Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School.  He is the co-editor of “The Redesign of Urban School Systems: Case Studies in District Governance,” published by Harvard Education Press.

Dr. Cristina de Jesus
President and Chief Executive Officer, Green Dot Public Schools California

Cristina is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot Public Schools California, a non-profit network of public charter schools. She has helped build the foundation of Green Dot’s success with a role in nearly every initiative and undertaking to boost student achievement across the network having originally joined Green Dot as the founding principal at Ánimo Inglewood Charter High School in 2002.  As CEO, she oversees our twenty-two middle and high schools across Los Angeles serving 11,500 students. She plays an integral role in the collaboration with Green Dot’s Teachers’ and Classified Employees Unions and she is part of the core team working on Green Dot’s national expansion work.

Before being named President and CEO, she was Green Dot’s Vice President of Curriculum and Instruction for two years before serving as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Academic Officer. Prior to joining Green Got, Cristina was an English and History teacher for seven years in the Santa Monica/Malibu School District and earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescent/English Language Arts. Cristina has earned a Masters of Education, a Masters of Education Administration, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from UCLA.