New York,
NY (March
14,
2005) --
Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced the appointment of Francie Alexander to Senior Vice President, Scholastic Education, and Chief Academic Officer of Scholastic Inc. In her new role, Ms. Alexander will be responsible for working across all of Scholastic’s divisions to advise on the creation of educational products and services in the areas of reading instruction, assessment, intervention, professional development and early childhood literacy. She will continue to serve as a spokesperson on educational best practices, in addition to overseeing research and evaluation efforts to ensure the qualitative validation of all Scholastic Education products and programs. She will report to Margery Mayer, President of Scholastic’s Education Division.
Ms. Alexander joined Scholastic in 1994 as publisher of research-based multimedia reading instructional materials including the successful and critically acclaimed, Scholastic Literacy Place
®, and the best-selling Scholastic Phonics Readers, which achieved over $10 million in sales in a two-year period. She has been instrumental in the development of the Company’s breakthrough reading intervention program READ 180
®, a scientific research-based program for older, struggling readers; the Scholastic Red
® professional development program, and the Scholastic Early Childhood Program Featuring Clifford
®, a research-based, year-long curriculum for pre-kindergarten.
A distinguished thought-leader in education research and policy, curriculum development and assessment practices, Ms. Alexander was recently named to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, widely known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” “We are fortunate to have someone with Francie’s considerable expertise in education to inform product development for all of our learning and intervention programs. Francie’s vast knowledge of academic best practices and commitment to education will contribute greatly to Scholastic’s overarching mission of helping educators raise student achievement,” said Margery Mayer, President, Scholastic Education.
Prior to joining Scholastic, Ms. Alexander served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning in the Office of Education Research and Improvement for the U.S. Department of Education, where she published the
Helping Your Child Learn books and
Consumer Guides to Education Research. She served as Executive Director of the National Council on Education Standards and Testing, the organization that published
Raising Standards for American Education, which galvanized the standards movement. Prior to that she served as Associate Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. Ms. Alexander also has extensive experiencing teaching in California from Kindergarten through College.
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Ms. Alexander has a B.A. in Combined Social Sciences from the University of California at Santa Barbara and earned her teaching credential from the University of California at Los Angeles. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education and a supervision credential from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA where she was a lecturer.
Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL) is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology. Scholastic creates quality educational and entertaining materials and products for use in school and at home, including children's books, magazines, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys. The Company distributes its products and services through a variety of channels, including proprietary school-based book clubs, school-based book fairs, and school-based and direct-to-home continuity programs; retail stores, schools, libraries and television networks; and the Company's Internet site,
www.scholastic.com.