Education Advocate Robert F. Sexton Dies at 68

Robert F. Sexton, the executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and a champion of Kentucky's pioneering and nationally influential efforts in K-12 education reform, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 68.

In his role at the helm of the Prichard Committee, based in Lexington, Ky., Mr. Sexton helped shape the Kentucky Education Reform Act, or KERA, which served as an early model of state-based accountability for schools.

Mr. Sexton was also a visible force in national education policy. He served on the board of the Education Trust, an organization in Washington that advocates for poor and minority children, as well as the board of the Education Commission of the States and numerous other organizations. Since 1992, he had served on the board of trustees of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit corporation that publishes Education Week .