About Us: Bios of our Two Principals

Mikala L. Rahn, PhD, President: Dr. Rahn has extensive preK-12 education experience in the areas of school reform, curriculum and assessment, teacher retention, after-school programs, school-to-work transition and parent involvement. Within these fields, Dr. Rahn provides instructional design and training services to improve student learning, program evaluation using both quantitative and qualitative methodology, and program development to improve community opportunities. In particular, Dr. Rahn has extensive expertise in the area of alternative measures such as standards-driven assessment (e.g. rubrics, prompts, performance, portfolio). In addition, Dr. Rahn is the Executive Director of Learning Works!, a community center providing educational opportunities for parents, youth and children. Dr. Rahn has her PhD in educational policy, MA in political science and MA in education administration from University of California at Berkeley, and a BA in human development communications from University of California, San Diego.

Michael Butler, Executive Vice President: Mr. Butler has spearheaded numerous program evaluation studies and research projects focused on the issues of comprehensive school reform and school accountability. He has directed several evaluations of site-based and preK-12 education reform initiatives in the Los Angeles region. Multi-year evaluation designs have incorporated both quantitative analyses of student- and school-level achievement data, and rigorous qualitative data collection methods, including school case studies and large-scale surveys of teachers, parents, and students. In addition to monitoring longitudinal student achievement gains and progress toward school performance benchmarks, these evaluation studies have been used to design local accountability systems conducive to self-evaluation and ongoing school improvement. Mr. Butler has an MA in Political Science from University of California at Los Angeles, and a BA in Political Science from Occidental College. Mr. Butler was also a Research Fellow at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California.

Complete curricula vitae are available upon request.

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