December 18, 2001

RALEIGH — Former schoolteacher and school board member Lindalyn Kakadelis of Charlotte has been selected as the new director of the North Carolina Education Alliance, a special project of the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation.

Kakadelis will write articles, participate in public forums, testify before governmental bodies, and comment on education reform issues from her perspective as a veteran teacher and education leader. She taught elementary school for seven years, directed a preschool program for seven years, served on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education for six years, and has recently helped to found a Mint Hill charter school.

She is a member of the Education Leaders Council and formerly served on the North Carolina Standards and Accountability Committee, the Council of Urban School Boards, and on the Education 2000 Community Committee in San Juan Capistrano, California. She and her family live in Pineville, North Carolina.

In addition to her new duties at the N.C. Education Alliance, Kakadelis will continue to direct the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Charlotte, which provides financial aid to hundreds of low-income students in the Mecklenburg County area to attend public or private schools of their choice.

“I am so excited to be joining the Education Alliance because of the promising future for educational progress in North Carolina,” Kakadelis said. “I strongly believe that our organization can be a forum for sharing innovative ideas and for bringing together a diverse group of educational leaders to tackle the challenges that face our children.”

The N.C. Education Alliance conducts research, publishes news and opinion articles, and holds events across the state to promote fundamental reform of the state’s education system based on such principles as high academic standards, pay for performance, innovation, outsourcing, and parental choice. Its statewide Steering Committee includes public- and private-school educators, county commissioners, school board members, business executives, and other community leaders.

The Alliance’s best-known projects include:

  • The annual Grading Our Schools report, which assigns letter grades to every school district in North Carolina based on test scores and graduation rates. Last year, state public schools as a whole received a grade of D+. This year’s grades, delayed by state testing errors, will be released in early January.
  • The What Works report and 12-city tour in September detailing the success of 21 public schools in the state, including two charter schools, that are achieving high student performance despite high poverty rates.
  • A regular section of education articles and columns in Carolina Journal, the Locke Foundation’s monthly newspaper, which has about 15,000 readers across the state.
  • Its Education Update newsletter, delivered by e-mail and posted on the website to thousands of educators, public officials, and reporters across the state.

Kakadelis will replace outgoing Alliance director Paige Holland, a Raleigh-based educator and community leader who recently moved to Maryland.

The John Locke Foundation, founded in 1990, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute devoted to state and local public policy issues in North Carolina. The organization is named after the distinguished 17th century educator, statesman, and philosopher of liberty John Locke, who also wrote the first constitution for the colony of Carolina. For more information, visit the website for the Locke Foundation or N.C. Education Alliance. For more information about the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Charlotte, visit the website.

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