Chief Learning Officer

Our client, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, is a nationally recognized education policy think tank and charter school authorizer (referred to as a “sponsor” in Ohio), sponsoring ten schools across nineteen campuses serving approximately 6,900 students throughout Ohio.Fordham-sponsored schools primarily serve students in urban communities, the majority of whom are low-income and students of color. The organization is deeply committed to ensuring that every student has access to excellent teaching and rigorous, standards-aligned instruction that leads to long-term academic success.The Fordham Foundation has created the new role of Chief Learning Officer (CLO) to strengthen its capacity for sophisticated instructional leadership in support of the schools it authorizes and its approach to sponsorship while building on Fordham’s strong reputation as a high-quality authorizer. Fordham seeks a dynamic, systems-minded, and results-driven leader to help shape and define this role from the ground up.The CLO is Fordham’s lead architect for instructional clarity, authorizer capacity, school-facing feedback, professional learning strategy, and renewal/application alignment. The role should help Fordham define what strong instruction, knowledge-rich curricula, and high-quality professional learning look like, train its own staff to see and evaluate those practices, give schools clear and actionable feedback, connect schools with outside exemplars, and ensure that the IEF (see below) becomes part of site visits, application review, renewal decisions, and accountability—not a separate instructional initiative.As a senior member of the Sponsorship Team, the CLO will report to the Vice President for Sponsorship and lead an internal team responsible for school quality at Fordham. The CLO will build the leadership capacity of their team and school leaders by ensuring academic expectations are rigorous, transparent, and aligned to Fordham’s mission, and by reinforcing a clear instructional vision: grade-level, cognitively demanding instruction; strong classroom culture with high expectations; high-quality curriculum implemented with fidelity; data-informed teaching supported by frequent assessment and feedback; and professional learning systems that build instructional expertise over time.To learn more about The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, please visit their website.