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Kenneth L. Campbell, a founding board member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), has served as president of the organization since January 2010. Since 2000, BAEO has worked to increase access to high-quality educational options for Black children by supporting parental choice policies and programs that empower low-income and working-class Black families.

Campbell has brought to his current post deep experience and expertise as one of the nation’s foremost authorities on charter schools. Under his leadership, BAEO is focusing on bringing top-performing charter schools to underserved regions of the South and providing greater support for high-quality, Black-led charter schools in key cities across the country.

Previously, Campbell led Louisiana’s charter school efforts as the founding director of charter schools at the Louisiana Department of Education. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he helped engineer the rebuilding of New Orleans’s education infrastructure through charter schools and implemented innovative strategies to transform failing schools across the state into higher performing charter schools.

As director of business development for the second-largest education management company in the United States, Campbell spent six years developing charter schools in urban areas nationwide. He subsequently applied the lessons of our nation’s early charter movement overseas, developing charter schools in Doha, Qatar, as part of the most progressive education reform effort undertaken in the Middle East.

Campbell began his career in education reform in Washington, D.C, helping to secure passage of the District’s landmark charter school law. He later founded the D.C. Charter School Resource Center, which cultivated school founders and leaders and helped to foster an environment where charter schools could succeed.

Campbell is a founding board member of 4.0 Schools – an organization focused on kindling new ideas in education and bringing together smart people who use creative problem solving to develop game changing products, companies, and schools that will transform education in the United States. He also served as a founding board member of Building Excellent Schools, which provides fellowships to help educational entrepreneurs design, build, and maintain excellent schools in underserved communities.

Campbell served in the United States Army and retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a captain in 2005. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Averett College in Virginia and a master’s degree in educational l eadership from Touro University International. He resides near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife and son.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., scholar, educator and public servant, has devoted his career to improving education in the United States. As Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, chairman of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, and President of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, his primary focus is the reform of primary and secondary schooling.

Finn has led Fordham since 1997, after many earlier roles in education, academe and government. From 1999 until 2002, he was John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. In 1992-1994, he served as founding partner and senior scholar with the Edison Project. He was Professor of Education and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University from 1981 until 2002. From 1985 to 1988, he served as Assistant Secretary for Research and Improvement & Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier positions include Staff Assistant to the President of the United States; Special Assistant to the Governor of Massachusetts; Counsel to the U.S. Ambassador to India; Research Associate at the Brookings Institution; and Legislative Director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

For 40+ years, Finn has been in the forefront of the national debate about school reform. His participation in seminars, conferences, and hearings has taken him to colleges, education and civic groups, and government organizations throughout the world.

A native of Ohio, he holds an undergraduate degree in U.S. history, a master’s degree in social studies teaching, and a doctorate in education policy, all from Harvard University.

Finn has served on numerous boards, currently including, the National Council on Teacher Quality and the Core Knowledge Foundation. From 1988-96, he served on the National Assessment Governing Board, including two years as its chair.

Author of 20 books, Finn’s latest (co-authored with Jessica Hockett) is Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools. Earlier works include Ohio’s Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Frontlines (co-authored with Terry Ryan and Michael Lafferty); Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik; Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut; Leaving No Child Behind: Options for Kids in Failing Schools (co-edited with Frederick M. Hess); Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education (co-authored with Bruno V. Manno and Gregg Vanourek); and The Educated Child: A Parent’s Guide from Pre-School Through Eighth Grade (co-authored with William J. Bennett and John Cribb).

A speaker and moderator at myriad events and frequent commentator in the national media, he has also penned more than 400 articles in such publications as The Weekly Standard, National Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Public Interest, Washington Post, New York Times, Education Week, Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Business Review, TheAtlantic.Com, NationalReview.com, Education Next, and The Columbus Dispatch. He also writes regularly for the Fordham Institute’s weekly Education Gadfly.

He and his wife, Renu Virmani, a physician, have two grown children and three adorable granddaughters. They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Robert C. Enlow is the President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the school choice legacy foundation of Milton and Rose D. Friedman. Robert has been an integral part of the Foundation since its founding in 1996, previously serving as fundraiser, projects coordinator, vice president, and executive director prior to being named president and CEO in 2009.

Under his leadership, the Foundation has become one of the nation’s leading advocates for school choice, working in dozens of states to advance its founders’ vision by disseminating research, sponsoring seminars, undertaking advertising campaigns, organizing community leaders, and providing grants.

Robert is the co-editor of “Liberty and Learning: Milton Friedman’s Voucher Idea at Fifty,” author of “Grading Vouchers: Ranking America’s School Choice Programs,” and co-author of “School Choice: A Reform that Works” and a chapter in “An Education Agenda: Let Parents Choose Their Children’s School.” His opinions have appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Arizona Republic, National Review, and USA Today.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Robert lived and worked in England where he served as a deputy day center manager and social worker for St. Botolph’s Project, an organization providing rehabilitative care and services to homeless men, women, and families. While in England, he also served on the school board of two inner-city schools in London—Hillmead Infants and Juniors School—where he chaired the finance committee and served on the building and curriculum committees. During his tenure, the success of the schools was nationally recognized in an inspection by Her Majesty’s Office of Standards in Education Department (OFSTED).

From 1990-1992, Robert attended Oxford University where he worked on a post-graduate degree in theology. He received his BA from Seattle Pacific University.

Robert has served as Private Sector Chairman of the Education Task Force for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that also recognized him as the Private Sector Member of the Year. He is also a board member of School Choice Ohio and the Economic Club of Indiana, and serves on the Indiana State Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Robert lives in Indianapolis and has two children, Jefferson and Charles.

Janine Yass is an avid education reform advocate both nationally and in the Philadelphia area.

She is the founder of Boys’ Latin Charter School in West Philadelphia, and was the Vice Chair of the school’s board through 2010. During that year, Ms. Yass joined with other local business and philanthropic leaders to co-found the Philadelphia School Partnership. Both she and her husband, Jeff Yass, continue to be supporters of several outstanding charter organizations in Philadelphia.

Other local charitable affiliations include her work with the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Music and People’s Emergency Center. In the past, she was a board member at both the Save the Children Foundation in Westport, Connecticut and Teach for America, Mid-Atlantic Region. Ms. Yass holds a masters degree in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelors degree in economics from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.

As Ohio’s 53rd Secretary of State, Jon Husted is responsible for oversight of elections in one of the nation’s most hotly-contested swing states. By his steady hand, Ohio delivered a smooth and fair 2012 Presidential Election with record absentee voting turnout. This was thanks in part to his decision to send the first ever statewide absentee ballot application mailing to all Ohio voters, thereby reducing the chance of long lines at the polls on Election Day.

From using technology to streamline the voting process to cleaning up Ohio’s voter rolls, and making it easier for military families to vote no matter where their service takes them, Jon is always looking to improve how we run elections in Ohio – and it’s getting noticed nationally. In 2013, the Washington Post’s blog “The Fix” named him one of their “Top 10 Rising Stars” in America. For his outreach to military families, Jon was recently recognized by the Association of the United States Army and Ohio was deemed an All-Star State by the Military Voter Protection Project. Under his watch, Ohio also received high marks for elections preparedness by voter advocacy groups, including Common Cause, the Verified Vote Foundation and Rutgers University Law School. In addition, Jon has servedon the Executive Board of the National Association of Secretaries of State and Vice President for its Midwestern Region.

In addition to serving as chief elections official, the Secretary of State is also the custodian of business filings in Ohio. Secretary Husted is committed to ensuring that Ohio’s job creators have a positive first interaction with the state of Ohio. He reminds his team that government should be in the business of good customer service and should work every day to eliminate bureaucratic delays that cost businesses time and money.

Previous Service and Personal History

Jon Husted was first elected to public office in 2000 as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Only four years later, Jon’s colleagues elected him Speaker of the Ohio House, making him one of the youngest ever to lead the body.

As Speaker, Jon was instrumental in passing the most fiscally-conservative budget in 40 years that included the reform of the state tax code and the largest income tax cut in Ohio’s history. He also led the passage of the Ed Choice Scholarship — a school choice option for children trapped in chronically-failing schools — and the creation of the Choose Ohio First Scholarship to encourage Ohio students studying in the STEMM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. For his legislative work, he’s proud to have been recognized as a Watchdog of the Treasury and as a Legislative Trail Blazer by School Choice Ohio.

After serving two terms as Speaker, Husted was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he was a leading advocate for reforming how we draw legislative and congressional districts. This is a cause he continues to champion as Secretary of State.

Raised in Montpelier Ohio, Husted attended the University of Dayton (UD), where he earned All-American Defensive Back honors as a member of the 1989 Division III National Championship football team. After receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UD, Husted stayed in the Dayton area where he served as Vice President of Business and Economic Development at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce.

With all of his responsibilities, Secretary Husted considers his most important roles as that of husband to his wife Tina and father to his children, Alex, Katie and Kylie.

Colbert “Colby” King writes a column — sometimes about D.C., sometimes about politics — that runs on Saturdays. In 2003, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for “for his against-the-grain columns that speak to people in power with ferocity and wisdom.” He is also a regular panelist on ABC’s “Inside Washington” and a regular commentator on WTOP Radio. King joined the Post’s editorial board in 1990 and served as deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007. Earlier in his career, he was an executive vice president of Riggs National Bank, U.S. executive director of the World Bank, a deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury Department, Democratic staff director of the Senate’s District of Columbia Committee, a State Department diplomat stationed at the U.S. embassy in Bonn and a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Adjutant General’s Corps. King grew up in Washington and attended Howard University. He is married to Gwendolyn Stewart King and has three adult sons.

Joel Klein is an American lawyer and school superintendent. He was the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States, serving more than 1.1 million students in more than 1,600 schools.

In 1975, Klein joined the legal team of the Washington, D.C. non-profit Mental Health Law Project. The MHLP was an independent non-profit organization that brought class-action suits to establish rights for mentally and developmentally disabled clients. In that capacity, Klein developed a specialty in health care and constitutional matters.

After working there for a year, he went into private practice, working for five years before founding his own law firm with several partners. In the 1990s Klein served in the White House Counsel’s office under President Bill Clinton before being appointed to the United States Department of Justice.

Joel Klein is now chief executive officer of Amplify, an education visionary and proven leader of change.

Under his leadership, The Accelerated Schools—in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), California State University, Los Angeles, along with foundations and corporate supporters—completed construction of a $50-million dollar comprehensive pre-K—12th grade school complex in 2003. This model public/private partnership charter school dramatically changed educational opportunities for the South Central Los Angeles community and served as a catalyst for the growth of charter schools regionally and nationally. In 1994, The Accelerated School was distinguished as the first charter school in South Central Los Angeles, and in 2001 was the first charter school in California to be recognized by TIME Magazine as “Elementary School of the Year.”

Steven B. Klinsky, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, established New Mountain Capitol in 1999. Prior to founding New Mountain Capitol, Mr. Klinsky was co-founder of the Leverage Buyout Group of Goldman Sachs & Co. (“Goldman”) (1981-1984), where he helped execute over $3 billion of pioneering transactions for Goldman and its clients. He then joined Forstmann Little and Co. (“Forstmann Little”) as an Associate Partner (1984-1986) and a General Partner (1986-1999), helping to oversee seven private equity and debt partnerships totaling over $10 billion in capital. Mr. Klinsky was the most senior partner of Forstmann Little outside of the Forstmann family for a majority of the 1990s.

Mr. Klinsky received his B.A. in Economics and Political Philosophy, with high honors, from the University of Michigan in 1976. He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (class of 1979) and his J.D., with honors, from Harvard Law School (class of 1981). He is or has been chairman or a director of numerous corporations and philanthropies.