Jennifer Vranek Founding Partner
Jenn founded Education First Consulting in 2006 based on three beliefs: Education reform must be the nation's top priority, radical change in schooling is essential, and improvement will require new ways of thinking and doing.
She has partnered with policymakers, education advocates, and foundation and business leaders in more than 20 states to analyze education improvement options and strategy, move public policy agendas forward, and generate public and educator support for reform. Her work at Education First focuses on policy, strategy and communication projects in the areas of college and career readiness, college completion, teacher and leader effectiveness and STEM education. Local, state and national clients include Achieve, Advance Illinois, American Federation of Teachers' Innovation Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Complete College America, Data Quality Campaign, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, National State Teachers of the Year, Seattle Public Schools and Washington STEM, and she led or was a team member on the development of winning Race to the Top applications for Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio and Tennessee.
Before starting Education First, Jenn was an advocacy grantmaker for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she launched major grant initiatives of more than $15 million in the Midwest and southeast. Prior to that Jenn served as executive director of Partnership for Learning, a CEO-backed education-advocacy organization in Washington; as co-founder of the Washington, D.C. office and director of benchmarking and state services for Achieve Inc., where she designed and launched the American Diploma Project; and as a researcher at the American Federation of Teachers.
In 2010, Jenn was honored by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of the "40 Under 40." A graduate of Leadership Tomorrow of Puget Sound, she is on the board of directors of the New School Foundation, which strengthens early learning through full-day preschool and aligned preschool through third grade schooling and she is a member of the advisory board and PAC board for Stand for Children of Washington.
Jenn holds a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University and an AB in history and public policy from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. She resides in Seattle, Washington.