User Profile

@chrisbarbic

Senior Education Fellow, Laura & John Arnold Foundation

Christopher Barbic is the superintendent of the Tennessee Achievement School District. In this role, Chris leads the development and operations of a statewide school district designed to develop and execute on Tennessee's strategy to move schools currently in the bottom 5% to the top 25% over the next five years. In 1998, Chris founded YES Prep, an open enrollment State of Texas charter school for grades 6th-12th. Students at YES Prep are required to gain acceptance into a four-year college or university in order to receive a high-school diploma. YES Prep has grown to four campuses serving 1,500 students and is in the process of creating the public school system in Houston that prepares the most low-income students fro college-graduation. YES Prep - Southeast was recently ranked #87 in Newsweek's issue of the top 100 high schools in the nation. The school has also been featured in the Houston Chronicle, Houston Press, 002 Magazine, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, KTRK-TV (ABC), ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, KHOU-TV (NBC), and KTRH Radio. Chris received the 2000 Do Something Brick Award, was appointed to President Bush's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans in 2001, received The Gleitsman Foundation's 2004 Citizen Activist Award, and received the 2006 Vanderbilt University Peabody College Distinguished Alumnus award. Chris was appointed by Governor Perry to serve a four-year term on the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC). Chris is the first charter school person to ever serve on the Board. Upon graduating from college, he joined Teach For America and taught for six years in Houston ISD. In 1995, Chris was named Houston ISD's Outstanding Young Educator, an award given to the district's best teacher under the age of 29. Chris graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1992, with a bachelor's degree in both English and Human Development. He lives in Houston, TX, with his wife Natasha and their two children, Tatiana (5) and Ramiz (3). He is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Aspen Institute-NewSchools Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.