User Profile

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Innovate Public Schools

Matt Hammer is the founding Executive Director of Innovate Public Schools, a new school reform organization working to promote and initiate great public schools for all children in the greater Silicon Valley region. Hammer was the Executive Director of People Acting In Community Together from 2000-2012. Under Hammer's leadership, PACT led the effort to make Santa Clara County the first in the country to provide access to health insurance to all low-income children, launched the highest-performing schools in Alum Rock, created ACE Public School Network, and built one of the only large public school choice movements in the country initiated and driven by low-income parents. In the 1990s, Hammer was a community organizer with Oakland Community Organizations, where he built the organization's parent-led new schools campaign. This effort made it the most improved urban district in California for 7 years. Hammer's work is featured in Jonathan Schorr's book, Hard Lessons: The Promise of an Inner-City Charter School, and in Mark Warren's book, A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing As A Catalyst For School Reform. Hammer advises organizations around the country seeking to build parent-led school reform efforts. Before moving back home to the Bay Area, Hammer was a staff organizer for Southern Echo in Mississippi and was the founding director of the Community Service Center at Duke University, his alma mater, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude. He and his wife Michelle live in San Jose with their two children, Mikaela and Mateo.