January 11, 2011

Mountain View, CA -  EdSource, an independent not-for-profit K-14 research and communications organization, is pleased to announce the appointment of longtime executive director Trish Williams to the California State Board of Education. The appointment, announced by Governor Jerry Brown on January 5, becomes effective on January 16. Williams has been at the helm of EdSource since joining the organization in 1992.

Founded in 1977 and located in Mountain View, EdSource has developed a strong reputation among education leaders and policymakers in California for its clear, accurate, unbiased information regarding California's most important education policy and improvement issues. EdSource's breadth and depth of work is supported by an experienced and dynamic board of directors, including prominent state policy leaders.

Among the agency's cornerstone programs, the EdSource website provides extensive data, policy analysis, and research, and boasts more than 26,000 individuals on its e-mail bulletin list. The EdSource annual public Forum on California Education Policy draws more than 400 stakeholders with a range of perspectives. EdSource information is trusted as a resource by people who want to understand and take action to address California's complex education issues.

Under Williams' leadership, the organization has gained increased national recognition for collaborating with other researchers to develop groundbreaking large-scale empirical studies that identify educational practices associated with improved student outcomes. The latest study, entitled Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades, was released in February 2010 and received accolades from several national education organizations involved in middle grades reform efforts.

Dr. Carl Cohn, currently serving as president of the EdSource Board of Directors, was also one of Brown's new State Board of Education appointees. Cohn is respected nationally for his long-term leadership of the Long Beach Unified School District where he served as superintendent from 1992 to 2002. More recently, he served in the same capacity at San Diego Unified School District from 2005 to 2007 and is now Co-Director of the Urban Leadership Program and Clinical Professor in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

The seven newly appointed SBE members join four others for their first meeting of the 2011 year on January 12.

Contact:
Smita Patel
650/917-9481
edsource@edsource.org