brightbeam

Demanding a brighter future for every child.

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Brightbeam Welcomes Cynthia Wakeford as Chief Content Officer

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Rochester, MI – Brightbeam, a national nonprofit working to bring a better education and brighter future to every child, enthusiastically welcomes Cynthia Wakeford to our organization as Chief Content Officer.

Wakeford is an award-winning content marketer with more than 15 years of experience building tech and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands. She joins brightbeam from GoodTime, where she was head of content strategy, brand and Public Relations. Wakeford also led the development of marketing and social strategies at Boulevard, a business management platform for salons and spas.

“I’m so excited to be joining Brightbeam,” said Wakeford. “Our strategy remains centered on innovating, evangelizing, and scaling our message. As influencers and educators continue taking their grassroots efforts digital, there is so much opportunity to build and grow an engaged audience and community.”

Throughout her career, Wakeford worked at leading tech and CPG companies, including SmugMug/Flickr, Madison Reed, and Benefit Cosmetics, servicing tech, CPG, and hybrid industries. 

“We’re thrilled to have Cynthia on board leading our content strategy,” brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart said. “We want every child to have access to a school that helps them grow intellectually and reach their God-given potential. With Cynthia’s skills and experience, brightbeam is now in an even better position to build engaged communities and shift the public mind toward making that happen.”

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education activists demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. We shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help credible messengers tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Education Post. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

Brightbeam Welcomes Kristen C. Smith as Partner, External Affairs

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Rochester, MI – Brightbeam, a national nonprofit working to bring a better education and brighter future to every child, is excited to welcome Kristen C. Smith as Partner, External Affairs.

Smith has a decade-old career in education that has seen her in Head Start classrooms, high schools, and model college-in-prison programs. Her passion for education stemmed from her interest in gender equity and the experience of Black girls in education, which she wrote about in the hip-hop informed social justice anthology, Wish to Live: The Hip-Hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader. She then dove head first into education policy, co-founding the South Louisiana Coalition for Education (SLCE). 

Smith has served as a policy advisor fellow in the office of policy and governmental affairs at the Louisiana Department of Education, a congressional intern with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, DC, a national advisory board member with Advance Illinois and was appointed to Mayor-President of the City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish Sharon Weston Broome’s transition team on education. Currently she serves on Teach for America – South Louisiana’s Government Relations Committee and CHANGE’s executive council, a nonprofit structured to empower disenfranchised youth and families.

Smith holds a BA in History, and an EdM in Education Policy Studies, Organization and Leadership from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Currently, she is a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar, earning a Doctor of Education in Diversity & Equity in Education (DE) at her alma mater. She lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

“Kristen is going to be an invaluable member of our team. We’ve recently launched a new strategic plan and are evolving our partnership model and scaling our consultative practice,” brightbeam COO Lesley Guggenheim said. “Kristen will lead that work and, ultimately, expand brightbeam’s impact in many more communities. We’re very fortunate to have her passion and experience.” 

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education influencers demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. Using the power of communications, we shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help strong voices tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Ed Post, that spotlight education issues locally and nationally. We also partner with on-the-ground initiatives, projects or organizations that align with our mission. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

Brightbeam Welcomes Lesley Guggenheim as Chief Operations Officer

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Rochester, MI – Brightbeam, a national nonprofit working to bring a better education and brighter future to every child, is excited to welcome Lesley Guggenheim as Chief Operating Officer.

Guggenheim has more than 15 years of experience leading nonprofit work to support schools and educators across the country. While the roles have varied, her underlying purpose has always been to deliver an excellent education to students, particularly those in under-resourced schools.

She began her career working at — and later leading — the NYC Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) program. At the time, it was the country’s largest alternative certification program, bringing thousands of high quality, diverse educators to NYC’s highest-need schools. After leaving NYCTF, Guggenheim became a Partner and then a Vice President at TNTP. She led several large-scale, multi-year partnerships with school districts, including the NYC Department of Education where she helped design and launch a new teacher evaluation system to 75,000 teachers. As a member of TNTP’s leadership team, Guggenheim oversaw a large portfolio of contracts, clients, and staff in various cities. She also led their teacher pipeline strategy, focusing on continuously improving TNTP’s existing talent work as well as developing new and sustainable ways to expand its impact and ensure students had access to effective teachers and leaders. 

Most recently, Guggenheim served as the Chief Operating Officer at Student Leadership Network, where she oversaw the implementation of the organization’s strategic plan and helped the organization significantly scale its work and impact. Guggenheim holds a BA in political science from Union College and an MPA in nonprofit management from New York University’s Wagner School.

“We are so excited about what Lesley brings to the table,” brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart said. “She’s got the leadership chops and experience to help us strengthen our operations here at brightbeam and we’re lucky to have her. Her skills will advance our capacity to demand better outcomes for children.”

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education activists demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. We shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help credible messengers tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Education Post, Citizen Ed, Project Forever Free, and more than a dozen local and regional sites that spotlight education issues nationally. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

Leading Education Organizations Demand Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and the Biden Administration Prioritize Teacher Diversity

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JOINT LETTER FROM 50+ MAJOR EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS AND 1,600+ INDIVIDUAL EDUCATORS AND ADVOCATES OUTLINES ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR SECRETARY OF EDUCATION MIGUEL CARDONA TO IMPROVE TEACHER DIVERSITY.

Philadelphia, PA and Rochester, MI  – Today, brightbeam, a nonprofit network of education activists and the Center for Black Educator Development, an organization dedicated to ensuring equity in the recruiting, training, hiring, and retention of Black educators, delivered a joint letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, urging him and the Biden administration to prioritize teacher diversity.

The joint letter was delivered in partnership with over 50 leading education organizations and was signed by over 1,600 individuals on brightbeam’s Voice to Action platform. The letter is still collecting signatures and support at voicetoaction.org/BidenTeacherDiversity.

The letter acknowledges that even as Dr. Cardona and President Biden have named teacher diversity as a goal for the administration, action must be taken now to ensure states, districts and schools adopt effective policy as they rapidly hire new educators and staff in the scramble to reopen schools fully and meet academic benchmarks from the pandemic. The letter includes many practical and comprehensive policy recommendations that the Biden administration can implement to support these efforts at the local, state and national level.

Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development and principal ambassador for the U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration:

Alice Walker once said that the most important question in the world is, “Why are the children crying?” Many Black and Brown children are crying because they can go through 13 years of school without seeing a single teacher that shares their cultural background, their shared sense of urgency and history. Setting teacher diversity as an immediate policy priority — especially as districts around the country are flooded with federal dollars to accelerate learning after the pandemic — will facilitate the positive transformation of the classroom that our students of color deserve.

Chris Stewart, brightbeam CEO, on the need to uplift the work of the Center for Black Educator Development and all of the activists calling for a more diverse teaching profession:

Teacher diversity is not a nice-to-have, it’s critical to improving education for all. Now is the time to make urgent, but informed policy to ensure that every single child is able to grow to their full potential in a classroom where they are culturally affirmed and are able to see professionals at the front of the classroom who look like them. Dr. Cardona and the Biden administration need look no further than educator experts like Sharif El-Mekki and the work of the Center for Black Educator Development for examples on how to make this a priority.

The version of the letter sent to the Department of Education also includes statements from the leadership of 26 organizations committed to building a diverse teacher pipeline, including Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children, Elisa Villanueva-Beard of Teach For America, Richard Barth of KIPP, and Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality. Other organizations adding statements include Latinos for Education, National Center for Teacher Residencies, New Teacher Center, and Relay Graduate School of Education. 

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education activists demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. Using the power of communications, we shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help strong voices tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Education Post, Citizen Ed, Project Forever Free, and more than 20 local and regional sites that spotlight education issues nationally. We also sponsor on-the-ground initiatives, projects or organizations that align with our mission. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

About the Center for Black Educator DevelopmentLaunched in June 2019, the Center for Black Educator Development is revolutionizing education by dramatically increasing the number of Black educators so that low-income Black and other disenfranchised students can reap the full benefits of a quality public education.  The Center exists to ensure there will be equity in the recruiting, training, hiring, and retention of quality educators that reflect the cultural backgrounds and share common socio-political interests of the students they serve. To learn more and get involved in their efforts, visit thecenterblacked.org.

Brightbeam Welcomes Nancy Gutierrez To Our Board of Directors

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Brightbeam, a nonprofit network of child justice activists and umbrella organization for the platform known as Education Post, publically welcomes Nancy Gutierrez as a member of its board of directors. 

A true leader of leaders, Gutierrez serves as the president and CEO of the Leadership Academy, a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to building the capacity of education leaders from local school districts and state education departments to education organizations across the country and internationally. In February 2020, she was named among the 100 most powerful leaders in education in New York by “City & State New York.”

Gutierrez started out as a teacher in her hometown of East San Jose, California. She later became the founding principal of Renaissance Academy, the highest performing middle school in the district, and a California Distinguished School. She successfully turned around the district’s lowest performing middle school and was named the UC Davis Rising Star, among other distinctions. 

She graduated from the inaugural cohort of the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program and from the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) Aspiring Superintendents Academy. Gutierrez has served on the national board of the Coalition of Essential Schools for more than a decade, is an instructor at New York University and frequently teaches at the Harvard Principals’ Center institutes for School Turnaround Leaders, as well as Urban School Leaders and Race, Equity, Access and Leadership. Gutierrez is a member of the Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC) Board of Directors and serves on the Latinos for Education teaching team.

“Brightbeam is unbelievably fortunate to have Nancy Gutierrez sitting on our board of directors,” brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart said. “Her talent and experience as a leader and as an educator will deepen our capacity to win campaigns on behalf of children. She understands exactly what it takes to successfully run an organization like ours and we are so excited to have her as a steady and reliable resource as we work to make a difference for kids.”

Gutierrez was officially voted in as a board member during brightbeam’s March 2021 board meeting.

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education activists demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. Using the power of communications, we shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help strong voices tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Education Post, Citizen Ed, Project Forever Free and more than 20 local and regional sites that spotlight education issues nationally. We also sponsor on-the-ground initiatives, projects or organizations that align with our mission. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

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Brightbeam Welcomes Suneet Bedi as Director of Development Strategy

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Today, brightbeam, a nonprofit network of education activists and umbrella organization for the platform known as Education Post, officially welcomes Suneet Bedi as its Director of Development Strategy.

Fueled by her experiences as an elementary classroom educator, Suneet has dedicated her career to eliminating educational inequity at a systemic level. Previously, she has worked at The Education Trust-Midwest advocating for state accountability and equitable policies to better serve Michigan’s students. Prior to joining brightbeam, Suneet led all corporate and foundation partnerships for Teach For America Massachusetts. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University and holds a master’s degree in education from George Mason University.

In her role as Director of Development Strategy, she will lead our efforts to ensure brightbeam’s sustainability and identify opportunities to grow brightbeam’s footprint.  

“We are delighted to have Suneet join our team as Director of Development Strategy. Her demonstrated dedication to working on behalf of students and families is laudable and her experience across the education landscape will take our advocacy and sustainability efforts to an exciting new place,” said brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart.

About brightbeam

Brightbeam is a nonprofit network of education activists demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child. Using the power of communications, we shine a light on communities that challenge decision-makers to provide the learning opportunities all children need to thrive. We help strong voices tell powerful stories that unite and move their communities to action. Brightbeam amplifies these stories through a variety of digital platforms, including Education Post, Citizen Ed, Project Forever Free and more than 20 local and regional sites that spotlight education issues nationally. We also sponsor on-the-ground initiatives, projects or organizations that align with our mission. To learn more, visit brightbeamnetwork.org.

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