Jeremy Ayers

Associate Director of Federal Education Programs

Jeremy Ayers is the Associate Director of Federal Education Programs at American Progress, where he focuses on advancing the Center’s federal policy agenda including issues of teacher and principal quality, school improvement, and fiscal equity. In addition he has expertise on the topics of high school reform and adolescent literacy.

Prior to joining American Progress, Ayers was a classroom teacher in Florida where he taught both elementary and middle school grades, learning firsthand what education policy looks like in practice. Prior to teaching he was a policy analyst for the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national high school reform organization based in Washington, D.C. There he successfully developed and promoted federal policy recommendations on literacy, teacher quality, and high school reform issues. Ayers got his start in education policy working for the Family Resource Center, a small nonprofit serving rural North Carolina children and their families. There he saw firsthand the power and promise that education holds for students when they have access and ambition.

Ayers holds a master’s degree from Duke University and a bachelor of arts from McMurry University in his home state of Texas.