Charmaine Mercer is Director of the Washington, DC, office and a Senior Researcher. Previously she worked at the Alliance for Excellent Education as the Vice President for policy and advocacy in standards, assessments and deeper learning and as the Director of policy and research for Communities for Teaching Excellence. Mercer also served in the federal government, including as the special assistant to the assistant secretary of the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education and as an analyst for the Congressional Research Service. She was a legislative staffer on the House Committee on Appropriations’ Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee and on the House Committee on Education and Labor’s K–12 education team.

Mercer received a Ph.D. in Political Science and Education Policy and an M.A. in American Government from Claremont Graduate University in California and a B.A. in Political Science from San Diego State University.