Relay Graduate School of Education
As Relay’s co-founder and president, Norman Atkins has led the institution since 2008. Atkins is also the founder, board chair and former CEO of Uncommon Schools, one of the nation’s highest-performing nonprofit charter management organizations, with 46 schools serving 14,000 students. In 1997, he co-founded and co-led North Star Academy Charter School of Newark, one of New Jersey’s very first and most celebrated charter schools. From 1989 to 1994, he was the co-executive director of the Robin Hood Foundation in New York City.
Recently, Atkins co-founded Zearn, a nonprofit, which is building the only comprehensive, standards-aligned, personalized K-8 math curriculum on the web for students and teachers to use for free. He has also joined the board of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. Atkins began his career as a freelance journalist, writing about education, poverty, politics, culture and social issues for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Parenting,The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.
Atkins earned an A.B. in history from Brown University and an M.A. in educational administration from Teachers College, Columbia University.