Former Journal Inc. CEO to Lead Strategic Planning and Community Engagement Efforts
For Immediate Release
Contact: Becky O'Neill I Teach For America
646.369.9374 I becky.oneill@teachforamerica.org
-OXFORD, Miss., July 9, 2012—Teach For America announced today that Billy Crews, a 30-year media executive and public education advocate, has been hired as Vice President, Strategic Partnerships for Teach for America in the Mississippi Delta region, headquartered in Oxford, Mississippi. As vice president, Crews will provide leadership in the areas of development, community engagement, and operational performance. He comes to Teach For America from Journal, Inc. where he served for twenty years as Chief Executive Officer and publisher for The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, in Tupelo – the largest Mississippi-owned newspaper. Journal Inc. is parent company to this daily publication along with a number of local newspapers, websites, and real estate holdings.
“Over the last two twenty-two years, Teach For America has been a valued community partner across the Delta region,” said Crews, “As our teachers continue to make a measurable positive impact in their classrooms, I look forward to working to build and expand partnerships that deepen this impact, amplifying our collective efforts to see greater opportunity and improved outcomes at the school, district, state, and regional levels.”
Founded in 1991, Teach For America currently has 570 teachers in the region, serving 43,000 students in 45 school districts. Alongside these educators, hundreds of alumni call the area home, working to ensure educational equity in a variety of leadership positions across sectors. This fall, there will be 10,000 Teach For America first- and second-year teachers – known as corps members – working in 46 regions across the country.
A champion of early learning, Crews’ educational engagement began in the late 1970s, when he piloted what would eventually become the Mississippi Reading Improvement Program – an initiative to place assistant teachers in all Mississippi public school K-2 classrooms that was ultimately adopted as part of the state legislature’s Education Reform Act. Later, Crews founded the state’s first multi-corporation early childhood learning center for employees of five Tupelo-based companies. In 2010, he raised $100,000 to fund pre-K classrooms in the local school district. Crews also served on the Tupelo Public School District Board of Trustees in the 1990s and briefly as the district’s Chief Operating Officer in 2011.
“Billy joins our movement at a critical time,” said Ron Nurnberg, executive director of Teach For America in the Delta for some 16 years. “Along with supporting the tremendous work of our teachers in the classroom, Teach For America aims to engage meaningfully with parents, families, and a wide spectrum of community partners. Our goal is to serve as a connector for all those who believe in the power of an excellent education for all students. Billy’s knowledge and experience will be an incredible asset to our team’s efforts to ensure outstanding opportunity for every child in the Delta.”
A graduate of Oxford public schools and the University of Mississippi, Crews served as president of the student body at Ole Miss in 1977. He and his wife Catherine Crews, formerly Catherine Burke of Jackson, Mississippi, have three children. Their son Lowrey worked for Teach For America for five years in New Orleans and Charlotte, NC and currently serves as an assistant principal at KIPP Central City Academy, a public charter school in inner-city New Orleans.
About Teach For America
Teach For America works in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing the challenges of poverty. Founded in 1990, Teach For Americarecruits and develops a diverse corps of outstanding individuals of all academic disciplines to commit two years to teach in high-need schools and become lifelong leaders in the movement to end educational inequity. This fall, more than 10,000 corps members will be teaching in 46 urban and rural regions across the country, while nearly 28,000 alumni are working across sectors to ensure that all children have access to an excellent education. For more information, visit www.teachforamerica.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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