John Danner

John Danner is co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, a national network of high-performing urban college preparatory elementary charter schools, whose mission is to eliminate the achievement gap in public education. Rocketship’s first two schools have already catapulted into the top #5 and #15 spots, out of more than 2,000 public schools with similar low-income populations. Rocketship has pioneered the transformative hybrid school model, that combines oustanding classroom teaching to enhance and extend students’ critical thinking skills, with individualized instruction using tutors and technology to strengthen students’ basic skills, and serve the needs of each and every child.

John’s prior experience includes: serving as Chairman of the Charter School Resource Center of Tennessee, founding director of KIPP Academy Nashville, co-founding the Sacred Heart Nativity School, a private Catholic middle school for at-risk Latino boys in San Jose, and serving as co-founder and CEO of NetGravity, an Internet advertising software company. John holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a Master’s Degree in Education Policy from Vanderbilt University. John is an Ashoka Fellow, a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and 2010 winner of the McNulty Prize.