Jo Anderson

Jo Anderson, Jr. is a consultant and founder of the Consortium for Educational Change (CEC), a network of 85 Illinois school districts that work through collaborative labor-management relationships to systemically reform districts and schools and improve student learning. CEC also works with nearly 200 school districts in other parts of the country.

Jo helped organize CEC 30 years ago and served as executive director from 1987 to 2005, during which time he was a staff person for and on the management team of the Illinois Education Association-NEA as well. He served as executive director of the Illinois Education Association-NEA from November 2005 until March 2009.

In April 2009, Jo joined the Obama Administration as senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He left the Department of Education in January 2014 to return to CEC, where he served as co-executive director from February 2014 to June 2020.