John White

As Louisiana State Superintendent of Education (2012-2020), John led nationally recognized efforts to unify the state’s early childhood system. He also spearheaded modernization of that state’s curriculum and developed pathways to prosperity for high school graduates.

Prior to being named state superintendent, John served as superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District, where he led the reformation of public schools in New Orleans in the years after Hurricane Katrina. He also served under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein as deputy chancellor for the New York City Department of Education and as executive director of Teach for America — Chicago and Teach for America — New Jersey.

John has served as an academic visitor to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and is co-founder and former chairman of the independent non-profit advocacy organization Chiefs for Change. He is Board co-chairman and co-founder of Propel America, a non-profit start-up connecting recent high school graduates with good first jobs and upward mobility. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Human Development.

John received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in public administration from New York University. His writings on education have been published in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Education Next, the Daily Beast, The Hill and the Brookings Institution’s Evidence Speaks.