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Non-profit

ExcelinEd

Website:

excelined.org
Location:

Tallahassee, FL
Tax ID:

26-0615175
Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)

Budget (2018):

Revenue: $9,535,022
Expenses: $9,419,734
Assets: $10,865,182
Formation:

2007
Type:

Non-profit
CEO:

Patricianna Levesque
CEO's Salary:

$405,3041

References

  1. Foundation for Excellence in Education Inc, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2019, Part VII, Section A, Line 1a.

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

ExcelinEd (formerly the Foundation for Excellence in Education) is a non-partisan, non-profit public policy think tank that advocates for educational innovation. ExcelinEd advocates for policies that support school choice, increased technologies and online learning, and programs that better prepare graduates for college and careers. 1 ExcelinEd was founded in 2008 by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R). 2

ExcelinEd is an associate member of the State Policy Network, a coalition of free-market state-level policy organizations. 3 ExcelinEd is non-partisan and members of its staff have affiliations with both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Activity

ExcelinEd is a non-partisan, non-profit public policy think tank that advocates for educational innovation. ExcelinEd advocates for policies that support school choice, increased technologies and online learning, and programs that better prepare graduates for college and careers. 4 ExcelinEd promotes eliminating public school district boundaries, creating more public charter schools, and implementing educational scholarship accounts for low income and special needs students. 5

ExcelinEd advocates for bridging the digital divide in education by providing widespread internet and device access to underserved students. It further advocates for more online learning programs, which include developing new online curriculum, establishing online services for students with special needs, and providing professional development in online learning for both schools and teachers. 6

ExcelinEd advocates for policy that would help close learning gaps. ExcelinEd claims this can happen by distributing funding and high performing teachers more equitably across public schools, holding schools more accountable for student outcomes, 7 and requiring third graders to pass a reading test before allowing them to move on to fourth grade, eliminating “social promotion.” 8

ExcelinEd advocates for further preparing students for college and careers by developing policies that reimagine learning and give students more pathways to education that can lead to better jobs. ExcelinEd claims this can happen by allowing students to earn credits through out-of-school learning experiences, restructuring schools to include micro schools and learning pods, encouraging college acceleration programs, and redesigning twelfth grade to provide more postsecondary and career experiences. 9

Funding

ExcelinEd is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations.  While ExcelinEd does not disclose specifics about its donors, tax filings show notable donations from the Walton Family Foundation,10 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,11 and the Bloomberg Family Foundation. 12

People

Staff

Patricia Levesque is the CEO of ExcelinEd. Levesque formerly served as deputy chief of staff of education to former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) and as staff director of education policy in the Speaker’s Office of the Florida Legislature. 13

Deena Reppen is the COO of ExcelinEd. Reppen formerly served as chief of staff at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and as press secretary to former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL). 14

Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds is the vice president of policy for ExcelinEd. Reynolds formerly served as deputy legislative director to former Governor George W. Bush and as chief deputy commissioner of the Texas Education Agency. Reynolds serves on the boards of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and UTeach. 15

Tom Greene is the vice president of advocacy at ExcelinEd. Greene is the former manager of campus programs for the American Enterprise Institute. 16

Tim Abram is the associate policy director of educational opportunity at ExcelinEd. Abram is a former education policy fellow for Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) and a former public policy fellow for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. 17

Liya Amelga is the managing director of strategy and operations at ExcelinEd. Amelga formerly worked as the director of equity and member services at the National School Boards Association and as the special assistant to the Board of School Commissioners for Baltimore City Public Schools. 18

Brandi Brown is the director of external affairs at ExcelinEd. Brown formerly worked as the director of external affairs for former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) and as the COO of the Florida Chamber Foundation. 19

Kymyona Burk is the Policy Director for Early Education at ExcelinEd. Burk is the former executive director of the Jackson Public School District’s Office of Teaching and Learning in Mississippi and the former state literacy director at the Mississippi Department of Education. 20

Cara Candal is the managing director of policy at ExcelinEd and a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute. Candal is a former senior research fellow at the Center for Education Reform. 21

Ashley DeMauro Mullins is the northeast regional advocacy director for ExcelinEd. Mullins is a former state director of StudentsFirst, the former director of government relations for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and a former education committee policy analyst for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. 22

Sam Duell is the policy director for charter schools at ExcelinEd. Duell is the former executive director of school choice at the Oklahoma State Department of Education. 23

Zach Eckert is the midwest regional advocacy director at ExcelinEd. Eckert formerly served as a policy analyst for the Indiana State Senate Majority Caucus focusing on education policy. 24

Joe Follick is the director of state communications at ExcelinEd. Follick formerly worked as the director of communications and external relations for Florida TaxWatch and as the communications director for the Florida Department of Education. 25

Adriana Harrington is the policy director of innovation at ExcelinEd. Harrington is the former director of project management at the Tennessee Department of Education. 26

Christy Hovanetz is a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd. Hovanetz formerly worked as assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, assistant deputy commissioner of the Florida Department of Education, and policy analyst for former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL). 27

Matthew Joseph is the funding policy director at ExcelinEd. Joseph previously worked as a senior program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, executive director of Advocates for Children and Youth, and a senior associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 28

Lowell Matthews, Jr., is the director of college and career pathways at ExcelinEd. Matthews is a former staff director for the Florida Legislature’s Senate Committees on Education Pre-K-12 and Higher Education. 29

Katherine Munal is a regional advocacy director at ExcelinEd. Munal is the former policy director of the Texas House of Representatives Republican Caucus and formerly served as chief of staff to Texas Representatives Scott Sanford (R-McKinney) and Jim Landtroop (R-Lubbock). 30

Matt Robinson is the associate policy director for innovation at ExcelinEd. Robinson is the former director of performance analytics for Teach For America and has formerly worked for the Education Redesign Lab and the Flamboyan Foundation. 31

Quentin Suffren is the senior advisor of innovation policy at ExcelinEd. Suffren is the former executive director of college, career, and military preparation at the Texas Education Agency. 32

Board of Directors

Janet Ayers is the president of the Ayers Foundation. 33

Reginald Brown formerly worked in the White House Counsel’s office as the principal legal liaison to the Department of Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development, as counselor for the White House Office of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel Office, and National Economic Council, and as deputy general counsel to former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL). 34

Jeb Bush (R) is the founder and serves as chair of the board of ExcelinEd, co-chair of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and chair of the National Constitution Center. Bush is the former governor of Florida, where he served two terms from 1999 to 2007. 35

Eric Cantor (R-VA) is a former U.S. Representative and House Majority Leader. 36

Chris Cerf formerly worked as the superintendent of Newark Public Schools, as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education, and as deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Cerf formerly served as associate counsel to former President Bill Clinton and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. 37

Cesar Conde formerly served as the White House fellow for former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Conde serves as a trustee of the Aspen Institute, on the board of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, as a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a young global leader for the World Economic Forum. 38

Philip Handy serves as a member of the Florida Governor’s Council of 100 and the board of overseers at the Hoover Institution, an advisor to the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and as director of the Education Equality Project. Handy formerly served as the chair of the Florida State Board of Education, the vice chair of the National Board of Education Sciences, and the chair of Limited Political Terms. 39

Dee Bagwell Haslam serves on the boards of the State Collaborative of Reforming Education (SCORE), the University of Tennessee Foundation, and United Way of Greater Cleveland. 40

Joel I. Klein is the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, a former assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and former deputy White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton. Klein serves on the board of Teach for America and as chair of the board of StudentsFirst New York. 41

Susana Martinez is the former Republican governor of New Mexico and former chair of the Republican Governors Association. 42

Bruce Rauner is the former Republican governor of Illinois. Rauner sits on the boards of the Foundation for Florida’s Future, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Everglades Trust, and The Nature Conservancy of Florida. Rauner formerly served as chair of the Chicago Public Education Fund and the ACT Charter School, and on the boards of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, New Schools for Chicago, and the Noble Network of Charter Schools. 43

References

  1. “About.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/about/.
  2. “About.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/about/.
  3. “The Network: Florida.” State Policy Network, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://spn.org/directory/#FL.
  4. “About.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/about/.
  5. “Policy Playbook.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/policy-playbook/.
  6. “Policy Playbook.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/policy-playbook/.
  7. “Policy Playbook.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/policy-playbook/.
  8. Gabriel, Trip. “Jeb Bush Leads Broad Push for Education Change With ‘Florida Formula.’” New York Times, April 26, 2011. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/education/27bush.html.
  9. “Policy Playbook.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/policy-playbook/.
  10. Walton Family Foundation, Inc., Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2009-2018, Part XV, Line 3a.
  11. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2010-2018, Part XV, Line 3a.
  12. Bloomberg Family Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2017, Part XV, Line 3a.
  13. “Patricia Levesque.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/patricia-levesque/.
  14. “Deena Wells Reppen.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/deena-wells-reppen-016487b/.
  15. “Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/lizzette-gonzalez-reynolds/.
  16. “Tom Greene.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/tom-greene/.
  17. “Tim Abram.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/tim-abram/.
  18. “Liya Amelga.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/liya-amelga/.
  19. “Brandi Langford Brown.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-langford-brown-539949136/.
  20. Kymyona Burk, Ed.D.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/kymyona-burk-ed-d/.
  21. “Cara Stillings Candal.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-stillings-candal/.
  22. “Ashley DeMauro Mullins.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleydemauro/.
  23. “Sam Duell.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-duell-34a78326/.
  24. “Zach Eckert.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/zach-eckert/.
  25. “Joe Follick.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-follick-14897b10/.
  26. “Adriana Harrington.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/adriana-harrington/.
  27. “Christy Hovanetz, Ph.D.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/christy-hovanetz-ph-d/.
  28. “Matthew Joseph.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/matthew-joseph/.
  29. “Lowell Matthews, Jr.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/lowell-matthews-jr/.
  30. “Katherine Munal.” LinkedIn, 2021. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinemunal/.
  31. “Matt Robinson.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/matt-robinson/.
  32. “Quentin Suffren.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/quentin-suffren/.
  33. “Janet Ayers.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/janet-ayers/.
  34. “Reginald J. Brown.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/reginald-j-brown/.
  35. “Jeb Bush.” Foundation for Florida’s Future, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://afloridapromise.org/people/jeb-bush/.
  36. “Eric Cantor.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/eric-cantor/.
  37. “Chris Cerf.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/chris-cerf/.
  38. “Cesar Conde.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/cesar-conde/.
  39. “F. Philip Handy.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/f-philip-handy/.
  40. “Dee Bagwell Haslam.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/dee-bagwell-haslam/.
  41. “Joel I. Klein.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/joel-i-klein/.
  42. “Susana Martinez.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/susana-martinez/.
  43. “Bruce Rauner.” ExcelinEd, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2021. https://excelined.org/people/bruce-rauner/.
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: December - November
  • Tax Exemption Received: November 1, 2007

    • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2018 Dec Form 990 $9,535,022 $9,419,734 $10,865,182 $673,089 Y $8,826,097 $335,499 $118,877 $819,176 PDF
    2017 Dec Form 990 $11,612,543 $10,289,381 $11,232,515 $695,203 N $11,216,090 $283,441 $97,552 $805,104
    2016 Dec Form 990 $7,797,470 $10,576,454 $10,225,059 $1,288,379 N $7,399,472 $292,763 $122,369 $751,788 PDF
    2015 Dec Form 990 $8,616,101 $10,787,772 $12,422,065 $879,125 N $8,433,866 $186,464 $205,899 $706,240 PDF
    2014 Dec Form 990 $11,884,963 $12,608,835 $14,437,440 $676,529 N $11,392,695 $190,637 $165,194 $260,800 PDF
    2013 Dec Form 990 $11,416,212 $10,355,530 $14,938,571 $297,682 N $11,211,124 $198,269 $62,866 $204,022 PDF
    2012 Dec Form 990 $10,056,650 $5,949,477 $13,710,854 $110,869 N $9,878,826 $93,628 $84,196 $0 PDF
    2011 Dec Form 990 $8,498,554 $3,930,451 $9,693,670 $233,345 N $8,399,714 $83,620 $10,378 $0 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    ExcelinEd

    215 S MONROE ST STE 420
    Tallahassee, FL 32301-1804