Bob Wise

Former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education (the Alliance), a nonprofit organization that has become a national leader for reforming the nations high schools so that all students graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college and a career. Led by Gov. Wise since 2005, the Alliance has become a respected advocate for the Common Core State Standards, deeper learning, digital learning, adolescent literacy, and other key education policy issues.

After serving a combined twenty-four years as governor, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and state legislator, Gov. Wise has become a sought-after speaker and advisor on education issues as well as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Education, White House, and key policymakers in the U.S. Congress. In 2011, Gov. Wise was named to the NonProfit Timess Power & Influence Top 50, an annual listing of the fifty most influential executives in the nonprofit sector.

Gov. Wise has appeared on national television and radio programs, including World News with Diane Sawyer (ABC), American Morning (CNN), Your Bottom Line (CNN), Morning Joe (MSNBC), Fox and Friends (Fox News), Huckabee (Fox News), Lou Dobbs Tonight (CNN), the Charlie Rose Show (PBS), PBS NewsHour, the Diane Rehm Show (NPR), and Washington Journal (C-SPAN). He has also been featured in many prominent publications, including Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta JournalConstitution, and Philadelphia Inquirer.

Among his many awards and recognitions, Gov. Wise received the Corporation for Public Broadcastings 2013 Thought Leader Award given to American leaders who affirm the essential services that public media provides to citizens in areas of education, journalism, and the arts and the National Association of State Boards of Educations Friend of Education Award in 2011. In 2012, he received the Charles W. Eliot Award from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges for his leadership in education policy. And in 2011, he was named to Marshall Universitys June Harless Hall of Fame for enacting the PROMISE scholarship program.

Gov. Wise currently chairs the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and serves on several other boards, committees, and commissions, including the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting, which develops rigorous accreditation standards for educator preparation; the Gordon Commission, a thirty-member commission of educators and experts formed to examine the future of education and its assessment; and the Business Roundtables Springboard Project, which developed policy recommendations for a twenty-first-century approach to equip Americans with the knowledge and skills needed for lifelong success in the U.S. workforce.

Gov. Wise serves on the board of trustees for the Americas Promise Alliance and West Virginia Wesleyan College. He is an advisory committee member for a number of organizations, including the National High School Center, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Educations Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and Office of Special Education Programs and housed at the American Institutes for Research. He also chairs the national board of directors of C-Change, which works to eliminate cancer as a major public health risk at the earliest possible time, and he serves on the board of advisors for the Moffitt Cancer Center.