Board of Directors
ERS Board of Directors
Marcia Blenko, Partner, Bain and Company
Marcia Blenko is a partner at Bain & Company, leading the firm’s Global Organization Practice from the Boston office. She joined the firm in 1988 and was elected to the partnership in 1995. Marcia has spent much of her consulting career in London, serving global clients. She has extensive experience in organization design, decision effectiveness, and leading organizational change across a range of sectors.
Ms. Blenko has authored a number of articles on organization, decision effectiveness, leadership, and executive compensation which have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The European Business Journal, Harvard Management Update, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda.
Prior to joining Bain & Company, Ms. Blenko worked for Goldman Sachs in both New York and London. She earned her MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar. She received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics/Economics from Brown University and was elected Phi Beta Kappa.
Peter C. Gorman, Senior Vice President, Education Services for News Corporation
Peter C. Gorman brings more than two decades of experience in education to his role as senior vice president of Education Services for News Corporation.
He began his career as a second-grade teacher in Orlando, Florida. He worked as a teacher, principal and district-level administrator in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties in Florida before becoming superintendent of schools in Tustin, California. In 2006, he became superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. Under his leadership, the district won the 2011 Broad Prize in Urban Education, which recognizes increases in student achievement and closing of achievement gaps. The book “Within Reach: Leadership Lessons in School Reform” by Tim Quinn and Michelle Keith chronicles the work in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
Gorman graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. He also holds a master’s in business administration from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and a master’s and doctorate in education leadership from the University of Central Florida.
Ellen Guiney, Executive Director, Boston Plan for Excellence
Since 1995, Ellen Guiney has led the Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE), a non-profit organization dedicated to innovative strategies for improving education in Boston public schools. During that time, BPE shifted its focus from teacher mini-grants to systemic issues, and worked closely with BPS leadership to break new ground in large-scale urban education reform, including: in-school “coaching” for teacher teams on effective instructional practices; the use of formative assessments to help teachers tailor instruction to individual students; and increased data analysis to inform instructional decisions and professional development. BPE also works closely with Boston Public School leadership to raise large grants to leverage changes to central support to schools.
Prior to her work at BPE, Ms. Guiney was Chief Education Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and one of the Democratic staff leaders on the reauthorization of Goals 2000 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1995. A former high school English teacher with degrees from Boston College and LeMoyne College, Ms. Guiney served as education advisor to Mayor Ray Flynn during Boston’s transition to an appointed school board.
Willis D. Hawley, Professor Emeritus of Education & Public Affairs, University of Maryland
Dr. Hawley joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1993 and his research and teaching interests include education policy, professional development, school improvement, and intergroup relations. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he served as a Scholar in Residence at the American Association of School Administrators and Executive Director of the National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching. Dr. Hawley has also served as Dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland, Professor of Education and Political Science at Vanderbilt University, and Dean of Peabody College at Vanderbilt.
Dr. Hawley holds his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley and has published a number of books, articles, and reports. He is currently working on book with Corwin Press entitled First Things First: Quality Teaching in Your School.
Uri Treisman, Professor of Mathematics, University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Treisman is professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center. His research and professional interests include mathematics and science education, education policy, and community service and volunteerism.
Professor Treisman has received numerous honors and awards for his efforts to strengthen American education. For his research at the University of California at Berkeley of the factors that support high achievement among minority students in calculus, he received the 1987 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in American Higher Education. In 1992, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. In December 1999, he was named as one of the outstanding leaders in higher education in the 20th century by the magazine Black Issues in Higher Education.
Professor Treisman received a B.S. (summa cum laude) in Mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1985.
