MENLO PARK, Calif. – Marc Chun, an expert in assessing student achievement, will join The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in early spring as an officer in its Education Program, officials there announced today.
For the past ten years, Chun worked at the Council for Aid to Education, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, where he was part of a team that developed and administered tests to measure the critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication of high school and college students. As the director of education, he created and ran a professional development program that promoted curricular and pedagogical reform to help students develop higher order thinking skills.
As an Education Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation, Chun will work to develop and implement grantmaking for what the Program calls “deeper learning.” Deeper learning embraces the mastery of core academic content, critical reasoning and problem solving, working collaboratively, communicating effectively, and learning how to learn independently.
His responsibilities will include the Education Program’s Deeper Learning “proof points network” and its research agenda. The network is a collaboration among ten school operators who oversee more than 400 schools in thirty-seven states. Its purpose is to document the effectiveness of educating students in deeper learning skills.
“Marc has a decade of experience exploring the education issues that are at the heart of our grantmaking for deeper learning,” said Barbara Chow, director of the Foundation’s Education Program. “His understanding of the issues crucial to educating students for the twenty-first century will be a great help to our work.”
Chun earned a Ph.D. in education from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has three master’s degrees: one in administration and policy analysis, from Stanford University; a second in education, from the University of California, Los Angeles; and a third in sociology, also from Stanford. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis, where he received a bachelor of science degree in Organizational Studies.
He has taught at Stanford University, Columbia University, Vanderbilt University, The New School, and Manhattan College, and has published extensively on topics related to education.
Earlier in his career, he worked as a research associate at The RAND Corporation and as a statistical consultant at Apple Computer, among other positions.
“It’s exciting to see the Hewlett Foundation making grants to encourage students to develop skills that my own research suggests will be crucial to their success,” said Chun. “I’m thrilled to be joining the Foundation’s Education team to advance that work.”
About The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1967 to help solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, the environment, global development and population, performing arts, and philanthropy, and makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. A full list of all the Hewlett Foundation’s grants can be found here.
Contact:
Jack Fischer
Hewlett Foundation Communications Officer
(650) 234-4500 ext. 5744
jfischer@hewlett.org