Brad Leon
Executive Director, Teach for America, Memphis
Brad Leon is in his third year as executive director of Teach For America in Memphis; next year, he will be taking on a state-wide role with Teach For America, leading our sites in both Memphis and Nashville. In his previous role as a recruitment director, Brad managed recruitment efforts at the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Iowa; during his tenure Teach For America’s application numbers at these schools increased by 96 percent. While a teacher of eighth grade language arts and social studies at the New Orleans Free School in New Orleans, Brad’s students excelled academically. In a district where success is not the norm, 98 percent of his students passed the Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP), the state’s high stakes, standardized test. As a result of his efforts, Brad was unanimously selected as the school’s “Teacher of the Year” in 2002. A winner of the Senior-Scholar Athlete Award, Brad graduated with honors from Occidental College in 2000 after participating in both football and baseball where he served as captain in 1999-2000.
