Benjamin Cottingham

Benjamin serves as a District Improvement Specialist where he partners with district teams to design and implement systems that strengthen teaching and learning in Pre-K-3rd grade mathematics and building coherence between 8th and 9th grade. Through this collaborative work, he helps districts develop systems that improve teaching and learning that are coherent with existing county and district contexts.

Benjamin’s career in education has spanned the classroom, state policy, research, and nonprofit leadership. He began as a Teach for America teacher in Oklahoma City before joining the Oklahoma Department of Education, where he helped develop the state’s academic standards frameworks. He later led nonprofit efforts to expand high-dosage tutoring in high-needs schools in Boston. Most recently, he served as Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships at Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), where his work focused on improving educational systems in California at the state, county, district, and school levels to better support effective teaching and learning.

Benjamin earned his MA in Education Policy from Stanford University. Throughout his career, he has been guided by a commitment to helping educators focus on the “main thing”—providing high-quality learning opportunities for every student—and to creating systems that make that work possible.