Jennifer Brown Lerner serves as a Deputy Director of the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization, provides learning opportunities for policy leaders, practitioners and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.
Jennifer began her career as a classroom teacher teaching middle school math and was active in the creation of a Summerbridge (now Breakthrough Collaborative) site in Atlanta, Georgia, a program that puts high-potential, low-income middle school students on a path to college. She previously held various teaching and administrative positions as number of schools in the Boston area before transitioning to work in educational policy in Washington, DC. At AYPF, she currently managing the organization’s work on wide range of issues that ensure all students graduate ready to succeed in college and careers. Her areas of expertise include dropout prevention and recovery, dual enrollment, and competency based education. She is authored numerous publications and articles including a compendium on best practices in secondary-post secondary learning options (or pipeline programs) entitled The College Ladder: Linking Secondary and Postsecondary Education for Success for All.
Jennifer received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA from Teachers College, Columbia University. She also participated in the Education Policy Fellow Program at the Institute for Educational Leadership in 2005-06. She currently lives in Washington, DC with her family and enjoys cooking and gardening. A Comparison of Promising State Trends in Implementing ESSA This session will outline the opportunities under ESSA to support the development and growth of high quality alternative options to meet the needs of all students in a variety of school settings. In addition, it will share early trends from an ongoing effort to understand and catalogue how states are handle accountability for alternative settings.
