Furman first conceived of launching a new type of urban public school nearly fifteen years ago as a first-year teacher in the charter corps of Teach for America in South Central, L.A. He then joined the staff of a startup school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He has consulted for many years with conventional and charter public schools, helping them to redesign their schedule, their educational program, to integrate technology, and to reallocate resources to maximize student achievement. Brown worked for ten years on the development of the Generation School model. He worked through three years on the evaluation of the program. During that time, the model and articulation have benefited from countless rounds of feedback and the advice of many others within the for-profit and non-profit world, with educational and charter school experience. In 2004, Brown won a prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship, recognized as one of the "world's foremost emerging social entrepreneurs". (See www.echoinggreen.org > "Visionaries" > "2004 Fellows") Brown earned a bachelors degree from the University of Denver and completed graduate courses at the University of California at Berkeley..
Jonathan Spear, Director of Program Development
Jonathan Spear is a former teacher and administrator in private, urban district and public charter schools, with extensive experience as a professional developer. He has critical experience as a founding teacher at the New York City Museum School (CSD 2), and as Director of New Voices School for Academic and Creative Excellence (CSD 15) in school partnerships with community-based resources and cultural institutions. In these roles he helped develop programs sited as best practices. Most recently, he was Director of Charter Schools for the Beginning with Children Foundation. In that capacity, he served as a member of the Leadership Team at Community Partnership Charter School (CPCS) and was responsible for oversight and compliance for both CPCS and the Beginning with Children Charter School (BwCCS).
He served on the board of both CPCS and BwCCS. He has also been an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College and has worked as a consultant with other charter schools. He is a parent of two. He is on the board of a community-based nonprofit in Brooklyn and has been part of a number of other community organizing efforts. Spear earned a bachelors degree from the University of Chicago and a masters degree in education from Bank Street College of Education. He completed coursework for his administrative credential at New York University.
