AUSTIN BEUTNER, a former investment banker and philanthropist with no experience leading a school district, has been chosen to run the Los Angeles school system. Beutner also founded Vision to Learn, which provides free eye screenings and eyeglasses to low-income students, though reports say the nonprofit has fallen behind on delivery and was in danger of losing its $6 million contract with the district. He also did short stints as the city’s deputy mayor and as the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. In addition, Beutner has worked with the district to review its operations.
BRIDGET TERRY LONG, an economist, will become the next dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Currently, she is the Saris Professor of Education and Economics at the school and previously served as its academic dean and faculty director of the research doctoral program. Long is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a board director for MDRC, a social-policy-research organization.
SHARON GRIFFIN, the Shelby County system’s chief of schools, has been selected as the chief of Tennessee’s Achievement School District, which oversees more than 30 schools, as well as assistant commissioner of school turnaround.
She was promoted to the chief of schools job in Shelby County last year, after heading up that system’s Innovation Zone to improve poor-performing schools in the district that includes Memphis. Griffin previously worked as a teacher and a principal.
NANA BANERJEE, has been been tapped to be the new president and CEO of McGraw-Hill Education. Banerjee served as group president at Verisk Analytics, a global company that uses advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records. He was previously the CEO at Argus, which was acquired by Verisk, and was the head of Citibank’s credit-card business in the United Kingdom.
