David Ross

David Ross is the CEO of P21, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning. In this role, David oversees all of P21's programs, which span the entire 21st Century Learning continuum, and its growing state support services. Most recently, David was the CEO & Founder of the Lurner Group, an educational consulting company that partners with starts-ups, non-profits, and school districts on revenue-development models. Ross worked for seven years as the Senior Director for the Buck Institute for Education and led its growth into becoming the dominant provider of professional development focused on Project Based Learning. While at BIE, David created and managed the PBL World Conference and the National Faculty. He is the co-author of the Project Based Learning Starter Kit.

Ross is a frequent and popular speaker and workshop facilitator at national and international conferences. He has presented more than 40 times on such topics as Project Based Learning, creativity, entrepreneurship, and 21st century teaching and learning. One of his most passionate interests is global education. He has led multi-year partnerships in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and South Korea. He has provided teacher workshops and leadership training in more than a dozen countries.

Ross anchors his leadership work in the ten years he spent in the classroom. He was an English and Social Studies teacher in an urban Los Angeles middle school for six years. He finished his classroom career by teaching U.S. history for four years at New Tech High School in Napa, CA.

Ross is an active member of the board of directors for several education organizations, including New Tech High School, Education Exchange, Youth Truth Survey, and School 4 One. He also served as a member of the board for LA Learns21 and Global Educational Community, and a member of the Learning Forward Conference Content Planning Committee.

Ross holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and M.S. in American Literature from Long Beach State University. He completed the course work for his PhD in education at the University of California, Davis. He holds a multiple subject teaching credential and two single-subject credentials from the state of California