 | Vicki L. Phillips Director, Education Division, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Washington Vicki Phillips serves as director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She oversees work focused on early learning in Washington to ensure high school students graduate ready for success in college, career and life and to improve access to college. For nearly three decades, she has endeavored to improve education— as a teacher, state-level policymaker, leader of a nonprofit education foundation, superintendent of a large urban school district and now as the director of education for the foundation. Phillips served as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s appointed secretary of education and that state’s chief state school officer. She previously served at the state level in her home state of Kentucky, helping to implement the sweeping changes demanded by the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990. Phillips has worked with the U.S. Office of Education in Washington, D.C., and has been a middle and high school teacher. She earned a bachelor's degree in elementary and special education and a master's degree in school psychology from Western Kentucky University. She also holds a doctorate in educational leadership and management from the University of Lincoln in England, and served as a founding member of the governing council for England’s National College for School Leadership. View sessions with Vicki L. Phillips |
