Dr. Cathy Mincberg
President and CEO for The Center for the Reform of School Systems
Most recently, Cathy Mincberg has joined The Center for the Reform of School Systems, CRSS. CRSS helps school districts – through better governance – meet the student achievement challenges of today. CRSS is an independent, not-for-profit Texas corporation that works to support school districts and community leaders who want to become more effective school reformers.
Since 2001, CRSS has trained leaders from more than 100 school districts – from America’s largest to the smaller – to employ strategies, processes, and tools to make significant improvements in their school systems.
The work of CRSS is based on the proven principles of Reform Governance® developed by school board veteran Don McAdams and described in his book What School Boards Can Do. CRSS helps improve the relationships among board members, superintendent, and community leaders, while increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of board governance.
The mission of the Center for Reform of School Systems is to teach board-superintendent teams how to transform their districts for high student achievement – because every community deserves a great school district.
Prior to joining CRSS, Cathy Mincberg joined KC Distance Learning as Vice President and Chief Academic Officer. Working with a team of curriculum and instruction professionals, KCDL is providing high quality online education for 6th - 12th grade students in three settings: at home or in private schools, in the public school classroom and in public school virtual schools. In June of 2010, KCDL was purchased by K12, Inc. one of the largest online education providers in the country. More information available at http://www.kcdistancelearning.com/
In 2005, Cathy Mincberg became the Chief Operating Officer of the Portland Public Schools. At PPS, she led the reconfiguration of schools producing 27 K-8s and closing 3 facilities to meet the shrinking needs of a declining enrollment district. As well, Dr. Mincberg founded the first State of the Schools luncheon for 1,000 community leaders to hear about district progress. To further community involvement in the most process oriented city in the US, she also held the first ever Facilities Summit: Reshape Schools: Space + Place, to kick off an extensive community process around the analysis of the district’s older than average school portfolio. This work is supported by the development of metrics for measuring productivity and improvements across the business operations of the district.
Prior to joining PPS, Mincberg was the founder and president of the Center for School District Effectiveness (CSCE) assisting reforming school systems with their business operations. In May 2004, she completed four years a Chief Business Officer for the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
As the Chief Business Officer for HISD, Mincberg has transformed the business operations of the seventh largest school system in the country into a high performance operation. 850 teaching traditionally vacant positions were filled for the first time meaning a certified teacher in all but 100+ classrooms for the first time in decades. Outsourcing the maintenance program to ServiceMaster produced a $60 million savings over seven years and increased productivity four-fold. During her tenure,the HISD police department has become the first accredited K-12 police department in the nation. And in addition, the transportation department was downsized by one third while still providing for the same number of riders.
Prior to serving as HISD's Chief Business Officer, Dr. Mincberg served on the HISD Board of Education from 1982-1995, serving as president in 1987 and 1990. Mincberg co-authored the board’s vision A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions along with fellow board members, Dr. Don McAdams and Dr. Rod Paige. Based on the education reform concepts of this vision, HISD became the first recepient of the Broad Prize for Excellence in Urban Education.
Additionally, the food service program, outsourced to ARAMARK, had lost $2.9 million the year before Mincberg’s tenure began, and produced an $11 million surplus in 2002-3 alone. As a result, employees in food service received performance pay in addition to their standard raises to recognized the tremendous contributions they made toward financial success. Finally, software was developed to display the district’s state-of-the-art curriculum on a new web portal so that teachers could access their curriculum from either home or school. HISD became the urban school district leader in high performance business operations.
With a Masters in Educational Administration from the University of Texas and an Ed.D. from the University of Houston, Mincberg has also served as a board member trainer for Region IV Educational Service Center as well as the Director of HR for Flagship Properties, a multi-family development, construction and management company. For eight years, she owned and managed the Quorum Report, the state’s premier non-partisan newsletter on state politics. During this time while Dr. Mincberg served on the Houston School Board, she also served 6 years as a Trustee of the Houston Community College. Mincberg began her life long involvement in education as a biology teacher at Lamar High School, serving from 1975-1979.