Executive Leadership Academy
The Executive Leadership Academy is designed to optimize human capital and has a proven track record of retaining public education professionals in Nevada and providing a path for career advancement. Graduates have reported a deeper skillset for creative problem-solving, strategic thinking, community building, and the practice of ethical and courageous leadership. The skills gained from the Executive Leadership Academy have led to innovative solutions that improve outcomes for all students. For select capstone projects, an alumni task force collaborates with school districts, the Nevada Department of Education, and state policymakers to develop and implement education policy solutions. Additional capstone projects that impact the broader community may receive funding to initiate a pilot program.
The Leadership Institute of Nevada has opened applications for the 2023-2024 Executive Leadership and Teacher Leaders Academies. Our institute has inspired educational leaders (teachers and administrators) to renew their commitment to the profession and bring about positive changes for the students and families of Nevada. Please apply and encourage your fellow educators to apply.
The Leadership Team looks forward to hearing from you. The links below provide the needed information. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
Click here to view 2023-24 Executive Leadership Academy – FAQs
Click here to apply for the 2023-24 Executive Leadership Academy.
Click here to pay your Academy tuition.
Contact Dr. Michele Robinson or call (702) 840-LION (5466) with any questions.
Executive Leadership Academy Faculty
Dr. Frederick M. Hess
Dr. Frederick Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on K–12 and higher education issues. The author of Education Week’s popular blog “Rick Hess Straight Up,” Dr. Hess is also an executive editor of Education Next, and a regular contributor to Forbes and the Hill. He is the founder and chairman of AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network.
An educator, political scientist, and author, Dr. Hess has published in scholarly outlets, such as American Politics Quarterly, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Teachers College Record, and Urban Affairs Review. His work has also appeared in popular outlets including the Atlantic, National Affairs, the Dispatch, Fox News, National Review, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
His books include A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education (Teachers College Press, 2021), Letters to a Young Education Reformer (Harvard Education Press, 2017), The Cage-Busting Teacher (Harvard Education Press, 2015), Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling (Corwin, 2013), Cage-Busting Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2013), The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday’s Ideas (Harvard University Press, 2010), Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2010), Common Sense School Reform (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004), Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
Dr. Hess started his career as a high school social studies teacher. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He is also the senior founding fellow of the Public Education Foundation’s Leadership Institute of Nevada.
Dr. Hess has an MA and a PhD in government, in addition to an MEd in teaching and curriculum, from Harvard University. He also has a BA in political science from Brandeis University.
Senior Founding Fellow
Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Dr. Liz City
Liz City is senior lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. City has served as a teacher, instructional coach, principal, and consultant, in each role focused on helping all children, and the educators who work with them, realize their full potential. City’s work is a combination of pragmatic: “How can we do our work better every day for children now?” — and imaginative — “What might learning and the systems that support learning look like in the not-too-distant future?” City fell in love with teaching in a closet-turned-classroom in St. Petersburg, Russia. She still loves teaching, and sees leadership as a continuous act of learning and teaching. From her early passion for literacy as a middle school Humanities teacher to her current work in developing leaders, common themes in City’s work are collaboration, evidence-based discussion, asking the right questions, thinking and acting strategically, and learning through doing.
She has authored/co-authored many publications, including: Meeting Wise: Making the Most of Collaborative Time for Educators (2014); Data Wise, Revised and Expanded Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning (2013); Strategy in Action: How School Systems Can Support Powerful Learning and Teaching (2009); Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning (2009); Resourceful Leadership: Tradeoffs and Tough Decisions on the Road to School Improvement (2008); and The Teacher’s Guide to Leading Student-Centered Discussions: Talking about Texts in the Classroom (2006).
Founding Fellow
Director of Education Leadership Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education
Dr. Marguerite Roza
Marguerite Roza, Ph.D., is Research Professor and Director of the Edunomics Lab (Edunomicslab.org), a research center focused on exploring and modeling education finance policy and practice. She leads the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Certificate in Education Finance, which equips participants with practical skills in strategic fiscal management, finance policy analysis, and financial leadership.
Dr. Roza’s research traces the effects of fiscal policies at the federal, state, and district levels for their implications on resources at the school and classroom levels. Her calculations of dollar implications and cost-equivalent trade-offs have prompted changes in education finance policy at all levels in the education system.
Dr. Roza has led projects on state and school district finance policy, financial equity, pensions, compensation, higher education finance, and other related topics, including the Institute for Education Sciences multi-year study of weighted student funding, the Finance and Productivity Initiative at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), and the Schools in Crisis Rapid Response Paper Series. She has written extensively on financial transparency and the opportunity for equity and productivity. Her work has been published by the Brookings Institution, Public Budgeting and Finance, Education Next, Governing, Peabody Journal of Education, and the American Journal of Education. Dr. Roza is author of the highly regarded education finance book, Educational Economics: Where Do School Funds Go?
Dr. Roza regularly works with state and local policymakers and education leaders and presents at research conferences and to national associations across the country, including the National Conference of State Legislators, National Association of State Boards of Education, Association of School Business Officers, Education Writers Association, and Policy Innovators in Education Network. She is frequently interviewed in the national media, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and Education Week.
Dr. Roza teaches as part of the Certificate in Education Finance and in programs elsewhere, including the University of Washington, Rice University, and the Broad Center.
Prior to her appointment at Georgetown University, she served as Senior Economic Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Earlier, she served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy teaching thermodynamics at the Naval Nuclear Power School. Dr. Roza earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Washington and a B.S. from Duke University. She also studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Amsterdam.
Founding Fellow
Director of Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University
A.J. Crabill
Improving student outcomes is Airick Journey Crabill’s relentless focus. His passion to improve student outcomes is rooted in his past: raised in and out of foster care, he attended eleven schools before graduating. He attended urban, suburban and rural schools; private, public, and parochial schools; lived with white families and families of color; lived in racist communities and inclusive communities; experienced loving homes and homelessness.
Guided by the idea that student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change and drawing on his intimate familiarity with the triumphs and terrors of America’s safety nets for children, he has devoted much of his adult life to advocating for the well-being of the United State’s most vulnerable youth.
AJ currently serves as the Conservator at DeSoto (TX) Independent School District. During his guidance, DeSoto made double digit literacy gains and improved from having F ratings in areas of academics, finance, and governance to the district earning all B ratings. He’s also Education Faculty at the Leadership Institute of Nevada where he trains cohorts of aspiring principals and superintendents; Collaborator with the Effective School Boards Initiative, a nationwide school board research consortium; and National Director of Governance at the Council of the Great City Schools in Washington, DC where he leads school board supports for the nation’s largest urban school systems. He served as Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Education Agency and he spearheaded reforms as board chair of Kansas City (MO) Public Schools that doubled the percentage of students who are literate and numerate and, eventually, led KCPS to full accreditation for the first time in decades. AJ received the Education Commission of the State’s James Bryant Conant Award, which recognizes extraordinary individual contributions to education, was a finalist for CGCS’ Green-Garner Award, recipient of the KC NAACP’s Lucile Bluford Special Achievement Award, and recipient of KCPS Education Foundation’s Loyalty to Scholars Award.
A former tech startup entrepreneur and avid volunteer, when AJ is not providing education leadership and coaching across the nation, he still enjoys coding, training high schoolers in student-led restorative practices, experimenting with flavorful vegan recipes in his kitchen, serving as a CASA volunteer, and zooming around Austin on his electric unicycle. Inspired by his parents who fostered more than 80 children, AJ has mentored dozens of young people, has helped raise five young people, and will not be surprised when God sends another young person to his open door.
Faculty Member
Texas Education Agency’s Deputy Commissioner for Governance
Kaya Henderson
Kaya Henderson is the CEO of Reconstruction, a technology company delivering a K-12 supplemental curriculum that situates Black people, culture, and contributions in an authentic, identity-affirming way, so that students of all backgrounds benefit from a more complete understanding of our shared history and society. She is also the co-host of Pod Save the People, and leads Kaya Henderson Consulting.
She is perhaps best known for serving as Chancellor of DC Public Schools from 2010-2016. Her tenure was marked by consecutive years of enrollment growth, an increase in graduation rates, improvements in student satisfaction and teacher retention, increases in AP participation and pass rates, and the greatest growth of any urban district on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) over multiple years.
Kaya’s career began as a middle school Spanish teacher in the South Bronx, through Teach For America. She went on to work as a recruiter, national admissions director, and DC Executive Director for Teach for America. Henderson then served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) until she began her tenure at DCPS as Deputy Chancellor in 2007. She most recently led the Global Learning Lab for Community Impact at Teach For All, supporting educators in more than 50 countries.
A native of Mt. Vernon, NY, Kaya graduated from Mt. Vernon Public Schools. She received her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and her Master of Arts in Leadership from Georgetown University, as well as honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown and Trinity University. Her board memberships include The Aspen Institute, Curriculum Associates, Robin Hood NYC, and Teach For America, and she is the co-founder of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC).
Faculty Member
Chief Executive Officer
Reconstruction
Dr. Ryan J. Smith
Dr. Ryan J. Smith serves as the Chief Strategy Officer at Community Coalition and supports the policy, advocacy, organizing and powerbuilding efforts for Community Coalition. Founded by Congresswoman Karen Bass, for more than three decades, Community Coalition (CoCo) has been a part of Los Angeles’ political, educational and movement landscape. CoCo was founded intentionally as an African American and Latino organization that is intergenerational in all of its work. The organization has been at the forefront of efforts locally at the school board, city, county, state, and federal levels to advance educational, racial and economic justice.
Prior to joining the Community Coalition, Ryan served as the Chief External Officer for LA Unified’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools overseeing the organization’s development, communications, policy and advocacy, and family and community engagement initiatives. Before that, Ryan served as the Executive Director of the Education Trust-West and Vice President of Strategic Advocacy for the Education Trust, a national education civil rights organization dedicated to closing opportunity gaps. At The Education Trust-West, he worked on producing actionable, accessible research and advocacy tools that reached state policymakers and on-the-ground community advocates and education leaders alike. Ryan also led the team’s development and production of Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Students in California, and The Majority Report: Supporting the Educational Success of Latino Students in California. Before Ed Trust, he served as the Director of Education Programs and Policy for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, where he was responsible for education program and policy efforts for the organization.
Ryan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from UCLA, and a Doctorate of Education from UCLA. He served as an Annie E. Casey Children and Family Fellow and a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. State Superintendent Tony Thurmond appointed him as a Co-Chair of his Closing the Achievement Gap Initiative.
Fun Fact: Ryan spent a brief period of his career as a teacher in Mexico City, which happens to be his favorite city in the world (after LA, of course). He goes back every year to check on his former students.
Faculty Member
Chief Strategy Officer,
Community Coalition
Dr. Karen Mapp
Karen L. Mapp, Ed.D., is a senior lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and the faculty director of the Education Policy and Management Master’s Program. Over the past twenty years, Mapp’s research and practice focus has been on the cultivation of partnerships among families, community members and educators that support student achievement and school improvement. She served as the co-coordinator with Professor Mark Warren of the Community Organizing and School Reform Research Project and as a core faculty member in the Doctorate in Educational Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program at HGSE. She is a founding member of the District Leaders Network on Family and Community Engagement as well as the National Family and Community Engagement Working Group, is a trustee of the Hyams Foundation in Boston, MA, and is also on the board of the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE) and the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) in Washington, DC. From 2011 to 2013, Mapp served as a consultant on family engagement to the United States Department of Education in the Office of Innovation and Improvement.
She joined HGSE in January of 2005 after serving for eighteen months as the Deputy Superintendent for Family and Community Engagement for the Boston Public Schools (BPS). While working with the BPS, she continued to fulfill her duties as president of the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE). She joined IRE in 1997 as Project Director, was appointed vice-president of IRE in May of 1998 and served as president from September 1998 to December 2004. Mapp holds a Doctorate and Master’s of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a Master’s in Education from Southern Connecticut State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
Mapp is the author and co-author of several articles and books about the role of families and community members in the work of student achievement and school improvement including: A New Wave Of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement (2002); “Having Their Say: Parents Describe How and Why They are Engaged in Their Children’s Learning” (2003); Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships (2010); “Debunking the Myth of the Hard to Reach Parent” (2010); “Title I and Parent Involvement: Lessons from the Past, Recommendations for the Future” (2011); A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (2011); “Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships” (2014), and “From Private Citizens to Public Actors: The Development of Parent Leaders through Community Organizing” (2015) and “Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher’s Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success” (2017).
Faculty Member
Faculty Director of Education Policy and Management Master’s Program at Harvard University
Dr. Michele Robinson
Director of Executive Learning
Bio coming soon.
Director of Executive Learning
Brenda Caszatt
Executive Learning Facilitator
Bio coming soon.
Executive Learning Facilitator
Zhan Okuda-Lim
Zhan Okuda-Lim is a Ph.D. candidate in Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an Assistant Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. His research interests include K-12 education policy and equity; the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on educators, families, and students; local and state education governance; student, community, and educator voices in decision-making; school finance and funding; and the mobilization of cross-sector resources to support schools and communities.
Prior to joining RAND, Zhan served as the Director of Policy and Government Relations at the Public Education Foundation (PEF) and was a Resident Fellow with the Leadership Institute. In these capacities, he collaborated with cross-sector stakeholders to explore policy priorities for Nevada’s students and guided education, nonprofit, business, and government leaders on researching and addressing problems in education policy and practice, including expanding student access to rigorous courses, improving coaching and feedback mechanisms for educators, and recruiting and supporting educators of color. Previously, he held summer policy experiences with the Clark County School District and engaged in projects to bolster supports for students with disabilities and students in foster care, address disproportionality in exclusionary school discipline, and implement positive behavior interventions and restorative practices.
A proud native Nevadan and graduate of public schools, Zhan’s interest in education policy and passion for public service was sparked during the Great Recession through significant budget cuts to public education. As Chair of the Nevada Youth Legislature and the CCSD School Board Student Advisory Committee, and as a student council leader and the Student Member on the Nevada State Board of Education, Zhan partnered with and mobilized peers to elevate students’ voices to local and state leaders and advocate for education funding and resources.
Zhan earned an M.Phil. in Policy Analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, an M.P.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an A.B. in Public and International Affairs from the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.
Visiting Policy Fellow
Visiting Policy Fellow, Leadership Institute of Nevada
“I realized it wasn’t professional development, it was really changing the way we think and the way we do business.”
Debbie Brockett
ELA Cohort 6
Executive Leadership Faculty Interviews
Dr. Liz City
Founding Fellow, Leadership Institute of Nevada
Director of Education Leadership Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education
November 4, 2023
Dr. Rick Hess
Senior Founding Fellow, Leadership Institute of Nevada
Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
October 14, 2023
Dr. A.J. Crabill
Texas Education Agency’s Deputy Commissioner for governance
September 22, 2023
Dr. Ryan J. Smith
Chief External Officer, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, LAUSD
September 1, 2023
Richard Gardner
Assistant Professor of Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology
May 14, 2022
Dr. Marguerite Roza
Founding Fellow, Leadership Institute of Nevada
Director of Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University
April 23, 2022
Dr. Karen Mapp
Senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Former Faculty Director of Education Policy and Management Master’s Program at Harvard University.
February 9, 2022
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