WHO WE ARE
James A. Kelly
Founding President, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
Jim Kelly is co-director of the Strategic Management of Human Capital project, a major initiative of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE); this multi-year, national project will be launched with significant foundation funding in January 2008.
Mr. Kelly has had a distinguished career in education policy, education finance, philanthropy, and teaching standards, assessment, and certification. For twelve years he was founding president and chief executive officer of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), where he helped to create National Board Certification (NBC), an advanced professional certification program for accomplished elementary and secondary school teachers. Almost all states provide recognition for NBC, and more than 40 states provide additional compensation to National Board Certified Teachers.
Prior to his time at NBPTS, Kelly served eleven years as program officer at the Ford Foundation, where he influenced state education finance and tax policies to make their support for education more equitable. Earlier he was on the faculty of Teachers College,
Since retiring from the NBPTS in 1999, Kelly has served as a senior advisor to Atlantic Philanthropies, the World Bank, the Asia Society, the National Academy of Sciences’ Strategic Education Research (SERP) Committee, Widmeyer Communications, Standard & Poors, and the Henry Ford Learning Institute. He has served on the executive board of the Consortium for Educational Policy Research and the Board of Overseers of the Graduate School of Education at the