Judith A. Rizzo, Ed.D.
Executive Director and CEO
In 2002, Judith A. Rizzo became the first Executive Director
of the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership
and Policy. Named for the former four-term Governor of North
Carolina, the Hunt Institute works with governors and other
current and emerging political, business and education leaders
to advance public education reform.
Formerly Deputy Chancellor for Instruction at the New York
City Board of Education, Rizzo has been on the front lines
of public education reform efforts in cities across the country
in a career that began as a junior high school teacher in
Revere, MA.
One of Rizzo’s primary innovations as the chief educational
officer for the nation’s largest school system was the
Chancellor’s District, created to provide direct oversight
of the city’s lowest-performing elementary and middle
schools and remove them from control of community school districts.
She created the Extended Time School (ETS) model for those
schools.
Rizzo led the efforts to introduce high academic standards
for all grade levels, and designed and implemented new assessment
tools to align with those standards. She helped design and
implement the Early Childhood Language Assessment System (ECLAS),
the first comprehensive early childhood standards system in
New York state.
Rizzo initiated reform of the city’s special education
program, referring fewer children to separate settings and
providing them services within general education classrooms.
She also introduced the Performance Assessment of Schools
System-wide (PASS) to guide development of school-based comprehensive
planning and accountability.
Prior to joining the New York City Board of Education in
1995, Rizzo served as Deputy Superintendent for the Tacoma,
WA public school system where she championed school-based
management and oversaw curriculum and instruction, management
of federal funds and the implementation of school accountability
protocols.
A graduate of Emmanuel College in Boston, Rizzo obtained
an MA degree from Middlebury (VT) College. She taught in the
Boston public schools before entering school administration
as the bilingual coordinator for the Boston Public Schools.
After working as senior aide to the Deputy Superintendent
for Curriculum and Instruction in the Boston Public Schools,
Rizzo served as the principal in three schools in Lowell,
MA, including a trilingual lab school operated at the University
of Massachusetts. She earned a Doctor of Education degree
from the University of Massachusetts in 1994.
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