Parker Baxter, J.D.-M.P.A., is Director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. Parker has two decades of experience in education systems leadership and policy and has worked in a wide variety of roles, including as a district and state administrator, charter school authorizer, policy analyst and researcher, legislative assistant, youth advocate, attorney and teacher.
Parker is also a Senior Research Affiliate at the Center on Reinventing Public Education where he previously served as Senior Legal Analyst working on the District-Charter Collaboration Compact Project and the Portfolio District Project.
Prior to joining the faculty at CU Denver, Parker was Director of Knowledge at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers where he as was responsible for identifying and disseminating effective authorizing practices and emerging issues in the field, assisting authorizers in improving their practice and developing their expertise, and developing content and resources for Knowledge Core, NACSA’s online learning platform.
Parker also previously served as Assistant Superintendent and the Executive Director of the Office of Parental Options at the Louisiana Department of Education, Director of Charter Schools for Denver Public Schools, and as an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Parker has a Juris Doctor from New York University’s School of Law, a Master in Public Administration (Public Management and Policy) from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, and a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Classics-History-Politics from Colorado College. He is a former special education teacher and an alumnus of Teach for America.
Featured Publication
The risks of collaboration are real. It is surely a greater risk, however, to disengage and retreat in the face of change. The age of top-down, centralized, and isolated service delivery—of any kind—is over. The future will belong to those who embrace this reality instead of fighting it. For school districts and charter schools, the emerging transformation from combative competition toward strategic partnership is a part of an ongoing and much larger shift happening all across the planet. The industrial age, with production and delivery models based on centralized, hierarchical authority, is over. We now live in a networked society, defined by open information, interconnectedness, adaptability, and decentralized authority and accountability.
The innovation and organizational change expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1983) wrote, “Change is always a threat when done to me, but it is an opportunity when done by me.” In very different places, for a wide variety of reasons, school districts and charter schools have begun to adapt together to the reality of their interdependence and the commonality of their goals and responsibilities. Others surely will join them, perhaps realizing that it’s better to be a driver of change than a victim of it.
“Mastering Change: When Charter Schools and School Districts Embrace Strategic Partnership,” with Elizabeth Cooley Nelson, in Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools , Robin J. Lake and Betheny Gross, Editors, Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2012.
Selected Publications
A Bigger Slice of the Money Pie, Education Next, Spring 2018, with Todd Ely and Paul Teske.
No Child Left Behind Rewrite Can Learn from the Charter Sector Real Clear Education with Alex Medler, 2015.
Accountability in Action: A Comprehensive Guide to Charter School Closure, Editor, Second Edition, NACSA, 2014.
No Surprises: How Responsible Governance, Smart Policy and Strong Authorizing Can Prevent Charter School Collapse,” with Alex Medler, Real Clear Education, 2014.
New Schools, New Opportunities—Seven Steps to Strategic Change, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, 2013.
A Call for Quality Charters,” Choice Words, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2012.
Mastering Change: When Charter Schools and School Districts Embrace Strategic Partnership, with Elizabeth Cooley Nelson, in Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools , Robin J. Lake and Betheny Gross, Editors, Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2012.
For Charter Schools and School Districts: Empty Space Equals Opportunity, in Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools, Robin J. Lake and Betheny Gross, Editors, Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2012.
