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Comings and Goings at Bellwether Education

By Alyson Klein — August 01, 2012 1 min read
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More summer personnel news: Bellwether Education, the non-profit education organization co-founded by Andy Rotherham of the still-fabulous Eduwonk blog, is bringing on some new folks—and saying farewell to Kim Smith, another co-founder.

Smith will be taking the helm of the newly-formed Pahara Institute, as CEO. She’ll be working on educational leadership issues there, through the New Schools Entrepreneurial Leaders for Education Fellowship, which will now be known as the Pahara - Aspen Education Fellows Program. Mary Wells, who has been leading Bellwether’s “strategy team” will become a Managing Partner at Bellwether.

So who’s coming on? The new folks include:

•Becky Crowe, who has spent the past several years as a consultant to philanthropies and state education departments, including on a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education with the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She’s bringing that work to Bellwether. She’ll be a partner on the “strategic practice” team (helping districts, non-profits and other folks put their ideas in action.)

•Andy Smarick, who most recently served as deputy commissioner of education in New Jersey. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, and at the White House, as well at several think tanks in D.C. (including the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he was a go-to source for Politics K-12 on Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grants.) He’ll be a partner on Bellwether’s “thought leadership” team (education non-profit-speak for the folks who write, analyze, advise and generally come up with big ideas about K-12 policy.)

Other new folks include Lina Bankert, from Bain & Company, who will be a principal on the “strategy team” and Chad Aldeman, from the U.S. Department of Education, who will be a senior policy analyst. Bellwether has also brought on Sarah Srivistava and Dhiya Venkataraman to serve as consultants.

And Sara Mead (of Edweek’s awesome Sara Mead’s Policy Notebook) is getting a promotion. She’ll be a principal on the “thought leadership” team (the advising/writing/consulting folks).