Ron Berger

Ron Berger is Chief Academic Officer for EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning). EL is a network of over 160 public schools in 30 states – an organization that partners with districts and charter boards to found public high schools in low-income communities that send all graduates to college, and helps to transform existing public schools K – 12 toward high student achievement, character and citizenship. EL’s core work is building teacher capacity through professional development, professional resources and open-resource curriculum.

Ron was a public school teacher and master carpenter in rural Massachusetts for over 25 years, in the small town of Shutesbury where he still lives and runs daily with The Coffee Cake Club. His writing and speaking center on inspiring quality and character in students, specifically through project-based learning, original scientific and historical research, service learning, and the infusion of arts. He works with the national character education movement to embed character values into the core of academic work.

Ron works closely with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he did his graduate work and now teaches a course that uses exemplary student work to illuminate standards. He is an Annenberg Foundation Teacher Scholar, and received the Autodesk Foundation National Teacher of the Year award.