Van Schoales is the President of A+ Colorado. He has thirty years’ experience leading education reform efforts from the classroom to the statehouse. Van has led or help found a number of non-profits, including the Odyssey School, Denver School of Science and Technology, Democrats for Education Reform Colorado, and Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools. He was an award winning high school science teacher in the Bay Area and has authored a variety of papers on school choice, charter schools, school accountability, student achievement, science education, school design, state policy, and other education improvement topics. He is regularly quoted in education news stories from The Denver Post, NBC, National Public Radio, Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Education Week, Univision and Fox News. He is also a Denver Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. Van earned a B.S. from the University of California – Santa Cruz (Earth Sciences), M.S. from Brown University (Geological Sciences), M.A. from San Francisco State University (Education Administration), and an M.A. from Stanford University (Education).