Christopher Edley, Jr.

Christopher Edley, Jr. is the co-founder of The Opportunity Institute. He founded and continues to be Chair of Partners for Each and Every Child, now a project of the Opportunity Institute. He co-chaired the congressionally chartered National Commission on Education Equity and Excellence (2011-13), appointed by Secretary Arne Duncan. Christopher is the Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law, after serving as dean from 2004 through 2013. Before Berkeley, he was a law professor at Harvard for 23 years, where Professor Gary Orfield and he co-founded the Harvard Civil Rights Project. He served in White House policy and budget positions under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Christopher has also held senior positions in five presidential campaigns, including senior policy adviser for Barack Obama (2008) and policy director for Michael Dukakis (1988). He is a member of: the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; the National Academy of Public Administration; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s National Programs Advisory Panel; and the Advisory Board of the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution. He is a National Associate of the National Research Council, National Academies of Science, for which he currently chairs the committee on NAEP performance levels.