John White

John White serves as Chief Success Officer at Great Minds, the developer of Eureka Math, Wit & Wisdom, Geodes, and PhD Science. 

White previously served as Louisiana State Superintendent of Education from 2012 to 2020. In that role, he developed nationally recognized efforts to unify the state’s fragmented early childhood system, to modernize curriculum, to professionalize the preparation of educations, and to provide pathways to prosperity for all high school graduates. Louisiana’s class of 2018 included 5,000 more graduates than did the class of 2012. Five thousand more students in that class earned the state’s TOPS college scholarship, and 5,000 more enrolled in college after graduating high school. 

Prior to being named State Superintendent, White served as Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District, leading the reformation of public schools in New Orleans in the years after Hurricane Katrina. He previously served as Deputy Chancellor for the New York City Department of Education and served as Executive Director of Teach For America – Chicago and Teach For America – New Jersey. He began his career as an English teacher at William L. Dickinson High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. 

White currently serves as a fellow at the Walton Family Foundation and as managing principal for Watershed Advisors, a recently formed venture building the capacity of governments to implement transformative ideas at a scale. He is co-founder and former chairman of the independent non-profit advocacy organization Chiefs for Change, as well as co-founder and chairman of the Propel America, a non-profit start-up connecting recent high school graduates with good first jobs. He holds a bachelor’s degree with distinction from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in public administration from New York University.