Chicago, Ill. (August 12, 2026) – As the conditions surrounding teaching and learning change rapidly, school systems face a growing challenge: putting the strongest available evidence into practice today while building, testing, and scaling what students and educators will need for the future.
Leading Educators today announced Bailey Cato Czupryk as its first Chief Research and Design Officer, a newly created executive role that will strengthen how the national nonprofit turns research, field learning, and emerging ideas into practical solutions for system improvement.
Cato Czupryk will lead an ambitious learning and design strategy focused on what students need to thrive beyond 2030. She will oversee Leading Educators’ Research and Design team, working across Program, Innovation, and Partnerships to connect insights from research and school system partnerships to the evolution of the organization’s services.
“School system leaders are making consequential decisions at a time when both resources and the conditions for learning are changing,” said Chong-Hao Fu, CEO of Leading Educators. “The evidence our field has built gives us a stronger starting point, but we also need to keep learning about what works, under what conditions, and what students will need next. Bailey brings an exceptional combination of research rigor, instructional expertise, and thought leadership that will position us to define stronger paths to students thriving.”
Connecting Evidence, Learning, and Design
Cato Czupryk joins Leading Educators after serving as Chief Program Officer at Gradient Learning, where she led efforts to integrate high-quality instructional materials, digital tools, and ongoing coaching to support school teams and students.
Previously, she spent nearly fifteen years at TNTP, where she held multiple leadership roles and led influential research on students’ experiences of teaching and learning. She was the lead author of The Opportunity Myth and architect of TNTP’s learning acceleration suite of research and resources. Cato Czupryk began her career as an eighth-grade science teacher in North Carolina before coaching K-12 literacy, mathematics, and science teachers in Florida. She also coaches state leaders through the Council of Chief State School Officers’ High-Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Development (IMPD) Network.
Her experience across classrooms, school systems, research, and service design will inform a role intended to bridge learning and practice disciplines.
“I started my career in a classroom, where I saw firsthand how research findings could help me improve my practice when I could find and make sense of them. Research should change what happens in classrooms for students, but too much of it is difficult to act on,” shares Cato Czupryk. “I came to Leading Educators because the organization is built deliberately to close that gap. We’ll equip educators to make the future by identifying which emerging ideas are worth testing, piloting them together, and openly sharing what we find, including what doesn’t work.”
Building for What Students Need Next
Leading Educators has built a rich evidence base around professional learning and the conditions that help instructional improvement take hold. Cato Czupryk’s appointment expands the organization’s capacity to learn from that foundation while exploring emerging operational and strategy questions facing schools.
The work reflects a central belief at Leading Educators: strong evidence provides a starting point for improvement, while changing conditions require organizations to continue learning with discipline.
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About Leading Educators
Leading Educators is a national nonprofit focused on making excellent, future-ready teaching the norm. We help school systems and states strengthen learning today and design the experiences students will need tomorrow, backed by one of the strongest records of impact in the field.
Working at the intersection of teaching, talent, and technology, we provide targeted solutions to persistent instructional challenges and emergent opportunities, enabling schools where all students and educators thrive together.
Learn more at leadingeducators.org
Contact:
Adan Garcia, Senior Director of Communications
(202) 510-0827
media@leadingeducators.org
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