We are pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has elected Andrés Antonio Alonso as board chair, and welcomes Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao as a new board member. Both appointments become effective immediately.

Dr. Alonso has been a member of the board for nearly four years. Several Foundation staff had an opportunity to work with him through our Building Teacher Effectiveness Network during his tenure as CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. Huggy’s addition to the board is especially timely given the Foundation’s focus on achieving quality educational outcomes reliably. His work on scaling excellence has been very formative to our work.

On his recent appointment Alonso said, “It is a great honor to be named chair of the board of the Carnegie Foundation. The work the foundation is doing to advance understanding of practices of improvement and disseminating the knowledge to educators is enormously important work. It is an absolutely necessary focus during a time when so many educators are struggling to adapt to new standards of practice and performance.”

“It is a privilege to be appointed to the board of the Carnegie Foundation, which has been an institution at the vanguard of scaling excellence in education,” said Rao. I look forward to contributing to this challenging endeavor and learning.”

Carnegie Foundation President Anthony S. Bryk offered a warm welcome to both. “I am pleased that Andrés will be taking on this important leadership role and excited to be working closely with him as we seek to expand our engagement with school systems nationally. Huggy was a wonderful colleague during my tenure at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He brings a wealth of experience in how organizations innovate and remain vital. I am gratified that he is joining our board to advance our efforts.”

Andrés Antonio Alonso

Alonso became a professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in July 2013. Previously, he served as the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools). During his tenure, Baltimore City students have reached their highest outcomes in state exams, across all categories of students.

He serves on the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

Alonso graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, and earned a J.D. and a doctorate in education from Harvard University. After practicing law in New York City he changed course to become an educator.

From 1987 to 1998, Alonso taught emotionally disturbed special education adolescents and English language learners in Newark, New Jersey. He then served as chief of staff for teaching and learning and as deputy chancellor for teaching and learning at the New York City Department of Education during the launch of its Children First reform.

Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao

Rao is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. In addition, he is a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, a Fellow of the Sociological Research Association and also a Fellow of the Academy of Management.  His research has also been published in journals such as the Administrative Science Quarterly, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science and Strategic Management Journal.  His teaching specialties include leading organizational change, building customer focused cultures, and organization design. He teaches courses on these topics to MBA and executive audiences.

Rao is co-author of the recent book Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less. Drawing on their own experience, Rao and co-author, Robert Sutton, identify the key principles necessary to ensure the successful growth and spread of any organization. Rao previously published Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovation.

About the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is committed to developing networks of ideas, individuals and institutions to advance teaching and learning. It joins together scholars, practitioners and designers in new ways to solve problems of educational practice. Toward this end, the foundation works to integrate the discipline of improvement science into education with the goal of building the field’s capacity to improve.