Team

Jay, a CPA, is founder, lead consultant, and CEO of EduAnalytics.  Jay's 25 years of K-12 education experience includes:  serving two terms as a local school district board member and chairman of the finance committee, co-leading a start-up K-12 education practice for Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), co-inventing the patented In$ite(TM) — The Finance Analysis Model for Education(TM) application, expert witness analysis and testimony in school funding litigation, and numerous finance studies at the state, district and school levels.  Jay has 18 years of prior banking and public accounting experience. Jay's eclectic experiences include: architectural designer, corn picker, queuing modeler, deck and playhouse builder, graphic designer, Excel model builder, tennis player, function-to-technology translator, estate executor, wainscoting, girls' softball coach, cabinet maker, zero-based budget builder, and XQ Super School reviewer.  Jay can lead your project, connect resources, and/or contribute as a specialist; he's dedicated to your success.

Sheree is founder and CEO of Talent First PBC.  She works on public and private education projects supporting the common goals of social justice and deeper learning for all students.  Previously, Sheree served as the Evaluation Director of the Walton Family Foundation working with the K-12 Education Reform, Environment, and Home Region program teams on performance analysis.  She also served as the Chief Operating Officer for British Schools of America from 2005 to 2007, a PK-12 school operator in the U.S.  Sheree chairs the Board of Councilors at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education, and serves on the Board of Perspectives Charter Schools in Chicago.  Prior to her work in education, Sheree worked for Coopers & Lybrand, LLC on mergers and acquisitions, corporate outsourcing, and K-12 education.  Sheree listens to your needs, contributes to your vision, and networks with knowledge clusters to turn your vision and execution into operational success.

Larry, president and lead consultant for Aspire Consulting, has investigated expenditure and revenue patterns of the nation's public schools on behalf of states and individual school districts since 1992. Larry has been the lead analyst on an analysis series named the "Charter School Funding" study.  This ground breaking comparative study of district and charter school funding, spanning 8 years, consists of three reports:  Inequity's Next Frontier (FY03 data), Inequity Persists (FY07 data), and Inequity Expands (FY11 data).  Larry also provided the financial analysis for the U.S. Government Accountability Office study of Title I expenditures.  Larry gives you peace of mind that every financial "t" is crossed and every "i" is dotted; and that the sum of the parts always agrees to the total, and the total represents 100% of the dollars.

Meagan is founder and lead consultant of Progressive EdGroup.  She has worked in education for the past 18 years, and is a former high school teahcer, a Teach For America alumnus, and Communications Director of the NC Charter School Resource Center.  Her work includes: school finance, charter school start-up, school design, school policy, reform efforts, education writing, and program tracking. Meagan can help you pick a direction.

Communities often play an important role in our projects, either as collaborators or as stakeholder beneficiaries.  The road to Trust is paved with cobbled contextualized facts.  Project teams dealing with transparency, accountability, and/or allocation of resources and attention to students are most likely to include Community.  Communities embedded in project teams bring lasting results.   

Clients are part of our team on every project, just in different ways.  Sometimes, our client is involved only in the planning phase and the "acceptance testing" phase.  Other times, we may provide temporary out-sourcing for a client function.  Or, a client may request that we provide "in-sourcing" by embedding their employee into our project team full-time.  Clients help us walk in their shoes.