StudentsFirst Staff

Michelle Rhee

CEO and Founder

Michelle began her career as a Teach for America corps member in Baltimore. Through her own trial and error in the classroom, she gained a tremendous respect for the hard work that teachers do every day. In 1997, Michelle founded and led The New Teacher Project, which recruits and trains teachers to work in urban schools. More recently, from 2007 to 2010, Michelle served as chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools. Under her stewardship, D.C. schools experienced increases in student achievement, a rise in graduation rates and an upswing — for the first time in decades — in enrollment.

Working in education over the past twenty years, time after time I saw obstacles keeping kids from getting what they needed from their schools. Yes, there were challenges that were going to be difficult to overcome no matter what, but so many practices just didn't make sense and were completely within our power to change. When I tried to change them, I found out why the status quo had persisted for so long.

Groups that put the interests of adults in the system first were driving the conversation, and they were backed by big dollars and political power. What we needed was a collective voice solely representing kids' best interests, because the sense of balance was completely gone. I started StudentsFirst to change that. Schools exist to give kids the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed, and EVERY decision has to revolve around that.

Dmitri Mehlhorn

Chief Operating Officer

Dmitri is on leave from his position on the executive team of a global software and services firm. Previously, Dmitri served as the chief of staff and a practicing antitrust counsel at a global law firm, and before that as an associate with a global consultancy. He was born in Oakland, California, and began his career as a debate instructor at a public high school. He has published articles on legal issues focusing on economics and technology. Dmitri is a graduate of Stanford University, Harvard University, and Yale Law School.

I am a child of immigrants, a child of a public school teacher, a product of our public schools, and a former public school teacher. I have been looking for my whole career for a way to help public education succeed. With StudentsFirst, we have a clear opportunity to make America a more just and prosperous society in 10-20 years, if we have the courage to make tough choices today.

Tim Melton

Vice President of Legislative Affairs

Tim is a former three-term, Democratic state representative in the Michigan legislature. During his time there, Tim served in leadership roles, including Assistant Majority Floor Leader, Chair of the Caucus Campaign and Chair of the House Education Committee. As Chair of the House Committee on Education, Tim successfully pushed through many bi-partisan educational reforms that included merit pay, take over of failing schools, smart cap charter school legislation and creating an effective principal/teacher evaluation using student data. He's brought his commitment to progressive reform and skills in forging coalitions for change to lead the Legislative team at StudentsFirst. Working with our members, his team helped change over 50 polices in 7 states affecting 8.7 million children in StudentsFirst's first year.

I never thought I would be in the middle of a national fight for our countries future but I realized right away once elected to the State House in Michigan that the only way our state and country can survive is by making sure that all kids have access to a high quality education. I also realized right away that many people and groups lobbying on behalf of public education weren’t focusing on the students but on their own self-interest. This is a battle worth fighting and I’m glad to be a part on a movement that is putting the interests of students ahead of adult interests at all costs.

Hari Sevugan

Vice President of Communications

Hari helps coordinate the message and manage press relations for StudentsFirst. For the last decade, Hari has been working on some of the most hotly contested electoral races in the country. Most recently, he was the National Press Secretary for the Democratic Party. Prior to his position with the DNC, Hari served as Senior Spokesman for the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign. Before entering politics, Hari was a school teacher at IS 143 in Washington Heights, New York. He is a Chicago native and graduate of Northwestern University Law School and the University of Illinois.

For too long the battle lines in education have been drawn as unions versus administrators, with each fighting to come out on top. No one won, and students lost. We need to change that dynamic, and put students at the center of our policy aspirations for a change. As a former teacher and union member I know that when we treat teachers like the professionals they are, our students come out on top.

Tali Stein

Vice President of Development

Prior to joining StudentsFirst, Tali served in several development roles. Those included working as Finance Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, which raised over $200 million in less than two years. She also was Chief of Staff at the Democratic Leadership Council and served as the regional finance director of Mark Warner's PAC, Forward Together.

People say we spend a lot of money on education, but we could spend it much more wisely. We should be steering critical resources toward classrooms and highly effective teachers, not broken bureaucracies and failed programs that shortchange students. Philanthropists across the country are eager to invest in real change for the future. I've worked closely with progressive leaders on fundraising for important political campaigns, and when I learned of StudentsFirst I realized that this was the next great progressive campaign.

Kathleen deLaski

Senior Strategy Advisor

Before coming to StudentsFirst, Kathleen deLaski worked as the senior program officer for education at the Walton Family Foundation, where she managed non-profit investments to grow advocacy capacity for education reform and quality public charter schools across the US. Kathleen also served as President of The Sallie Mae Fund and Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Consumer Marketing for Sallie Mae. She spent five years at AOL as director of news and political programming. Prior to AOL, Kathleen was appointed by President Clinton as Chief Spokesman for the Pentagon, where she oversaw the military's worldwide public information team. Kathleen also spent 13 years as a TV journalist, including 5 years as an ABC News Washington and White House correspondent.

I quit my job to join StudentsFirst because I couldn't miss the once-in-a-generation opportunity to seize this moment and be present at the revolution. I have been so lucky to be present for some of my lifetime's most interesting turning points in national public discourse — the end of the Cold War as we decided what a post-superpower military posture should look like, the dawn of the Internet as a social tool and now...drum roll... the wake-up call as (finally!) sufficient numbers of us across parties and states are noticing the silent retreat of US superiority in K-12 education.

George Parker

Senior Fellow

George Parker is a 30-year veteran math teacher of the DC public school system. He is the former president of the Washington Teachers Union, elected to that post in 2005. In 2010, Parker worked with Michelle Rhee to negotiate a ground-breaking collective bargaining agreement that featured innovations in teacher compensation, professional development and evaluations. The agreement was rooted in the shared belief that DCPS leaders must raise academic and teaching standards while also treating teachers fairly and giving them the tools and conditions to work effectively with children.

As the former president of the Washington Teachers' Union, I know firsthand how difficult it is to step outside our "homogeneous union box" embrace reform and support educational policy changes that truly put our children first. However, too many of our public schools across the country are in educational crisis. It is time for our teachers and teachers unions to stand up and become active advocates and committed leaders in the education reform movement. We can no longer afford to sit back and allow our differences to take priority over the urgent need to work collectively on behalf of educating our children.

Eric Lerum

Vice President of National Policy

Eric has been working on public education reform issues for the past decade. He served most recently as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Mayor for Education for the District of Columbia, playing a lead role in school reform efforts, including the mayoral takeover of the school system and the successful Race to the Top application. A 2003 graduate of the Washington College of Law, Eric has served as the Legislative Counsel to the Committee on Education, Libraries, and Recreation of the D.C. Council and as a policy analyst for the DC Board of Education. Eric developed his interests in public education and youth justice while in law school, where he served as a Fellow in the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project and taught constitutional literacy to high school students. Eric grew up in Ohio and attended The Ohio State University.

I approach this from a civil rights perspective, seeing the achievement gap as the greatest injustice of our time. For me, the only education reform is meaningful, aggressive education reform that reflects the urgency of the situation in our classrooms. We have to disrupt the interests behind the status quo — the status quo has no urgency. StudentsFirst aims to push, to innovate...to be unafraid of making students the priority. The achievement gap can be conquered — we can do this.

Enoch Woodhouse

Vice President of Operations

Enoch Woodhouse provides oversight and coordination of strategic and administrative operations at StudentsFirst. In this role, Enoch manages the finance, human resource, compliance and information technology functions of the organization. Enoch joined StudentsFirst from the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he worked in the District's Office of Data and Accountability and led the District's effort to deliver increased information about DCPS schools to the public. Enoch previously worked for City Year and a Manhattan-based hedge fund. He earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College, is the former President of the Harvard Black Alumni Society of New York and serves on the Harvard Alumni Association Board of Directors.

In public education, we have been talking about scalable solutions for a long time and the only scalable solution that we've found for too many students, and particularly Black and Hispanic students, is jail. Overwhelmingly, we know what works. Now we need to create the conditions to support these proven solutions. That's exactly what StudentsFirst sets out to do — to create the conditions for success that guarantee a great teacher for every student; that guarantee quality education options for parents and students; and that guarantee our dollars are not being put toward building more prisons but toward the things that work for kids.

Angelia Dickens

General Counsel

Angelia brings a unique set of experiences to her StudentsFirst legal work. Prior to coming to StudentsFirst, she worked in the in-house counsel's office for the American Civil Liberties Union and practiced corporate law for a large New York City law firm. She also teaches Non-Profit Organizations at Fordham Law School and is a member of the Government Relations Committee of the Non-Profit Coordinating Committee of New York. Angelia received her law degree from Columbia Law School and her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.

Education equality is the civil rights issue of our time. I am proud, honored and excited to be a part of the movement to transform and improve education outcomes for all students regardless of race, class and neighborhood.