Deeper Learning 2019

Adria Steinberg leads JFF's program and policy development efforts to improve the educational options and prospects of young people who have disengaged or disconnected altogether from the educational and workforce systems. 
Adria and her Back on Track teamwork with state, district, intermediary, and federal policy and practice leaders to improve graduation rates and support the creation and scale-up of high-quality pathways to family-supporting careers and postsecondary credentials for off-track and disconnected youth. The team serves as the implementation partner in the Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund, providing strategic support to 21 communities implementing a collective impact approach to developing pathways to postsecondary credentials for opportunity youth. 
Under her leadership, JFF, with the Aspen Institute, is the recent recipient of a federal Social Innovation Fund Award to further develop the evidence base for and spread of such efforts. Adria also is the senior advisor to JFF’s Students at the Center team; in that capacity, she has co-authored and served as the developmental editor of numerous papers produced or commissioned by JFF as part of a growing research base for student-centered approaches to learning and deeper learning competencies. Under her guidance, Students at the Center has garnered increasing attention from policymakers as well as practice leaders for its well-formulated and actionable research products.  
When she joined JFF in 1996, Adria brought years of experience as an educator, school reformer, and writer/editor. She was co-founder of an alternative high school, the academic coordinator charged with reinventing a vocational high school program within a large comprehensive high school, and co-principal in a consulting company that staffed national advocacy efforts such as Our Children at Risk, a commission chaired by Marion Wright Edelman and Harold Howe. 
Adria has authored many publications, including a five-year stint as primary writer/editor of The Harvard Education Letter. Among recent publications, she is co-author of Achieving Collective Impact for Opportunity Youth (Stanford Social Innovation Fund Review); Anytime, Anywhere: Student Centered Learning for Schools and Teachers (Harvard Education Press); Pathway to Recovery: Implementing a Back on Track Through College Model; The Past and the Promise: Today’s Competency Education Movement; and Raising Graduation Rates in an Era of High Standard. 
Adria holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Swarthmore College and a master's degree in education from Boston University. 
Sam Seidel is the Director of the Student Experience Lab at the Business Innovation Factory and author of Hip Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011). Sam speaks internationally about innovative solutions to challenges facing schools, community organizations, and prisons. He is a passionate and experienced leader in education transformation.
Sam has taught in a variety of settings from first grade to community college. He has built and directed programs for young people affected by incarceration. As a consultant, Sam worked with leading national education organizations, including the Black Alliance for Educational Options, Big Picture Learning, and Jobs for the Future, as well as a spectrum of other clients on a diverse set of projects, ranging from redesigning a statewide juvenile justice system to working with the Rockefeller family to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Sam was the Director of Partnerships, Annual Reviews, and Student Leadership for the Association for High School Innovation, a national network of school developers and replicators funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sam graduated from Brown University with a degree in Education and a teaching certification. He was a Scholar-in-Residence at Columbia University's Institute for Urban and Minority Education, and a Community Fellow at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is always learning.
Part lounge, part studio, the Deep Dive Den (D3) invites attendees to learn from educational leaders. One of the goals of the deeper learning conference is to propel the deeper learning movement by connecting attendees to inspirational ideas and people. Den talks aim to be a conversational style talk where a pair of educational leaders interview one another about a topic that is of importance to their organization, the deeper learning movement or perhaps to the future of education. No slide decks no prepared talks–just conversations on what matters most.