Ben Austin
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Ben runs organization called Kids Coalition to translate “kids first from a sound bite into a civil right. Ben serves on the board of Students Matter, after having served as the organization's advocacy and policy director.
Ben came to Students Matter from Parent Revolution, a non-profit focused on transforming underperforming public schools through community organizing, which Ben both founded and led for seven years. Ben invented, passed into law, and implemented California’s historic parent trigger law, which was the subject of two feature films, the documentary We the Parents and the fictional account Won’t Back Down.
Ben served as a Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles under Mayor Richard Riordan where he coordinated communications and helped craft the city's education policy. In 2010, Ben was appointed to the California State Board of Education where he approved California’s Common Core standards.
Ben came to the education space through a career in national Democratic politics, where he worked on five presidential campaigns and worked in the Clinton White House in a variety of roles.
Ben is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Georgetown Law School. Ben is as a Fellow of the 10th class of the Pahara - Aspen Education Fellowship.
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