Keynote Speakers Bios

Kevin P. Chavous is a noted attorney, author and national school reform leader who has been at the  forefront of promoting change within the District of Columbia public school system. His efforts led to over 500 million new dollars being made available to educate children in DC.

A leading national advocate for school choice, Mr. Chavous helped to shepherd the charter school movement into the nation’s capital. Under his education committee chairmanship, the DC charter school movement became the most prolific charter school jurisdiction in the country, with over 20% of DC’s public school children attending charter schools. Mr. Chavous assisted in shaping the District’s three sector education partnership with the federal government — a partnership led to fifty million new federal dollars for DC public schools, DC charter schools and it funded the first federal scholarship program to allow 2,000 low income children to attend private schools.

Mr. Chavous has emerged as one of the nation’s most respected and influential education reform leaders. He is a Distinguished Fellow with the Center for Education Reform and serves on the board of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. He also is a co-founder and Chair of Democrats for Education Reform and a founding member of the Education Equality Project.

More recently, Mr. Chavous led the team working with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal that advocated for the recently passed scholarship program in New Orleans. As a result of that legislation, nearly 1,000 students are now attending private schools of their choice in the New Orleans parish. An early supporter of Barack Obama, Mr. Chavous served as a member on the Education Policy Committee of the Obama Presidential Campaign.

Mr. Chavous is a partner at the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP.  He is the author of Serving Our Children: Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education, a highly praised book chronicling the emergence of the charter school movement in both Washington, D.C. and around the country.  In 2008, Mr. Chavous and his son formed Serving Our Children, Inc. (SOC), a non-profit organization with the simple, yet important mission of providing monetary assistance for teachers to supplement their classroom needs. Mr. Chavous was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and graduated from Wabash College, where he was an NCAA All-American in basketball. He also graduated from the Howard University School of Law, where he was president of his graduating class. He lives in Washington, DC.

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There is Only One Way to improve Student Achievement

Dr. Harry Wong is, arguably, the most sought-after speaker in education.  His techniques have been adapted by thousands of educators for success in their schools and classrooms and he is credited with renewing entire schools and rescuing countless frustrated teachers.  He is the author of The First Days of School, which has sold over 3 million copies and writes a monthly column for www.teachers.net.  Harry Wong will explain that the single greatest effect on student achievement is the effectiveness of the teacher.  Effective teachers have a classroom that is structured and organized and CONSISTENT in how the classroom is run.  He will show what he and others do to ensure student success.    He has been called Mr. Practicality for his common‑sense, research-based, no‑cost approach to managing a classroom for high‑level student success.

Instructor magazine surveyed its readers and featured the 20 people most admired by educators.  Harry Wong was on this list along with Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Maya Angelou, and Howard Gardner.  In 2009, he was presented the Horace Mann League’s Outstanding Public Educator Award at the American Association of School Administrators meeting.