Ken Turner

Background

About Ken Turner

Ken Turner has led education reform efforts in the United States and abroad. In the U.S, he provided leadership for an award-winning school, a high-performing district, a reform-minded state system of students, and the fifth largest district in the nation. According to an international assessment report titled "Trends in International Math and Science Study", science results for the district he helped lead were among highest in the world; at the same time, the district had the lowest per pupil operating expenses of any TIMSS participant. Outside the U.S, he has led, designed, or operated schools in Africa and Asia and has advised non-governmental organizations that span the globe. For the last six years he has been associated with a pair of Las Vegas-based think tanks. One is the Lincy Institute at UNLV and the other is Guinn Center for Policy Priorities where he served (until Jan, 2022) as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow. His efforts at these institutes have focused on the purpose, force, and effect of performance management techniques on educational quality and efficiency. From 2016-2018, Turner directed efforts for the State of New York to improve the quality and quantity of current and future principals through partnerships with districts, universities, and third party providers. Funded by the NYC-based Wallace Foundation, Turner served as Director of the Principal Preparation Project for the Regents Research Fund at the University of the State of New York. From 2019-2020, Turner was recruited to serve as Assistant to the Senior Deputy Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. In DPS, he contributed to efforts to design a District-wide equity framework. Since 2020, he has provided (on-site) contracted support to the DPS Superintendent in the areas of strategic planning, policy governance, and change management.