As Senior Director of Policy to Practice (P2P) at the Alliance for Excellent Education, my role is to direct and support a body of work that bridges policy to practice (and vice versa) at the state, district or secondary school levels. People should talk to me about how to support practitioners, through their local policies and research/evidence based practice ideas, in meeting the academic needs of their students; with particular focus on underserved secondary youth. As part of that broader topic area, people should talk with me about the leadership models and approaches that are most likely to bring about rapid attainment of local school improvement goals.