Theodore M. Shaw has been named the next president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Mr. Shaw, 49, has served as the New York City-based fund’s associate director-counsel for 11 years. He will succeed Elaine R. Jones, who announced last month that she would step down May 1.
During his 19-year tenure with the organization, Mr. Shaw supervised and presented arguments in a number of civil rights cases nationwide at the trial and appellate levels and before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Legal Defense Fund works on issues related to education, affirmative action, civic participation, economic access, and criminal justice.
Howard L. Fuller, a longtime advocate of school choice, was one of two people honored in the second annual Fordham Prizes for Excellence in Education program, sponsored by the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Each prize winner receives $25,000.
Mr. Fuller, 63, was awarded the program’s prize for valor. He is a distinguished professor of education at Marquette University who served as Milwaukee’s superintendent of schools from 1991 to 1995.
He also established the Washington-based Black Alliance for Educational Options, which promotes vouchers and other forms of school choice for low-income and minority families.
Eric A. Hanushek, a prominent researcher and an advocate of accountability in schools, was also selected as one of the Fordham prize winners.
Mr. Hanushek, 60, was awarded the prize for distinguished scholarship for his research that examined the need for better teachers in public schools. He is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a research center for public policy.
—Catherine A. Carroll
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