Chris Barbic

Chris is a partner at The City Fund, a national nonprofit that supports local leaders in cities that are working to grow the number of great public school options. He has worked in public education for almost three decades as a teacher, charter school founder, and superintendent.

Chris began his education career in 1993 as a middle school English teacher in Houston as a corps member in Teach For America. He was named the District’s Outstanding Young Educator the next year. In 1998, he founded YES Prep Public Schools, a Houston-based charter management organization (CMO) that exists to increase the number of students from underserved communities who graduate from college. YES Prep is widely recognized as one of the nation’s highest-performing CMOs and won the inaugural Broad Prize for best charter organization in the country.

After serving as CEO of YES Prep for 13 years, Chris served as the founding superintendent of the Achievement School District (ASD) in Tennessee, a statewide district designed to transform the bottom 5% of public schools in the state. Under his leadership, the ASD restarted 33 new schools serving nearly 10,000 students. Student achievement in ASD schools increased faster than the state average in math and science every year of operation.

Chris is a graduate of Vanderbilt University.