Our team is dedicated to helping practitioners improve the quality of education nationwide.

 
 

CA Group team members have served in numerous school and district leadership roles, led large scale municipal and state-level education initiatives, and supported the drafting of state level education policy. We have strong, specific expertise in the science of teaching reading, student centered blended learning, and instructional technology.

  • CA Group was founded by Cat Alexander in 2007. Cat currently focuses her education work on public/private school design and replication; personalized learning school design, implementation, and scaling; and strategic grant-making and impact investment support. Through her experience as a business process consultant with Accenture, an intern with the Chicago Public School District, chief operating officer of Rocketship Education, and program officer at the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Cat brings an extensive and uniquely diverse perspective to public education reform.

    Cat holds a master’s in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a liberal arts degree from the University of Texas, Austin.

    Contact Cat: cat@catalexander.com

  • Pamela Barrier brings to engagements a strategic and pragmatic perspective to help educators improve literacy instruction to better align to current reading science, including best practices promoted through the Texas Reading Academy, and improve outcomes. Her extensive experience in literacy instruction emphasizes early reading acquisition, reading gaps and interventions, and reading disability. During Pamela’s tenure at CA Group and as a school leader, she has developed significant expertise deploying data-driven practices and blended learning strategies to make learning more student-centered and engaging, and improve student outcomes. Specifically, she has supported numerous districts and campuses across Texas redesign instructional approaches to literacy and other subjects which better integrate research-based practices and leverage blended learning to improve student achievement.

    Pamela is a Certified Academic Language Therapist trained at the Neuhaus Education Center. She graduated with a Master of Business Administration with honors from the University of Texas at Austin and received a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Tulane University.

  • Rebecca Bunn has an extensive background in education reform. Her areas of focus include school turnaround initiatives, charter-district collaboration, new school start-up processes, and personalized learning. Prior to becoming an education consultant, Becca served as president of The Riordan Foundation and Rx for Reading, two education-focused philanthropic organizations located in Los Angeles. Additionally, she served in a variety of roles in the New York City Department of Education, where she specialized in high school redesign, charter school approval and oversight, and new school development. Before transitioning into district policy roles, Becca taught for several years in inner-city Boston and New York City public schools.

    Becca graduated with honors from Harvard College as a Government major and received her Master’s in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

  • Tracy brings a mission-driven perspective and relentless focus on empirical research to design learning experiences that empower educators to shift mindsets and take actions to improve literacy outcomes for all learners and bring students to the center of the learning conversation. Tracy leads the CA Group design team to continually challenge the status quo and hold space for educators to have purposeful learning gatherings to move their work forward. As a strategic consultant, Tracy partners with districts across Texas to improve literacy instruction and outcomes in alignment with current reading science, leveraging data informed, student-centered strategies. Prior to her work in personalized learning, Tracy served as a bilingual teacher in Texas and Mexico and with children with special needs – experiences that deeply influence how she views challenges in education.

    Tracy received a master’s in early childhood education with a focus on children with special needs from the University of Houston - Clear Lake and a Bachelor of Arts from Texas A&M University.

  • Jamie Prijatel has over a decade of experience in charter and district school education reform. Jamie currently specializes in new small school design and program development, school replication, model codification, market research, professional development, event planning, project management, and facilities renovation. Her clients have included the New York City Department of Education, the Foundation for Education Excellence/Oakwood Homes, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, the New York City Charter School Center, the Walton Family Foundation, and Green Dot Public Schools.

    Previously, Jamie worked at the New York City Department of Education and at Good Shepherd Services, a community-based family and social services organization. She has been a consultant since 2008. Jamie holds a Masters in Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University and a Bachelor degree in Psychology from Boston University.

  • Bebe Ryan works with a wide variety of schools, charter management organizations, and nonprofits, leading efforts in project design and implementation, fundraising, growth and strategic planning. Previously, she served as national development director for Rocketship Education, leading strategic planning and fundraising efforts. Bebe has held senior leadership roles in talent management, strategy and fund development at Firstline Schools and KIPP New Orleans, and launched and led Revolution Foods’ Louisiana business.

    Bebe began her education career as a development officer for Teach For America in New Orleans. She holds a bachelor of arts with honors from Bowdoin College.

  • Micha is a dedicated public school leader with a wealth of experience in blended learning, innovative teaching practices, K-2 literacy and professional development. In her career spanning almost three decades, she served in many capacities: a teacher, librarian, campus administrator and district-level administrator. During her time in public education, Micha worked as the Director of Innovative Learning and as the Raising Blended Learning project manager at the Ysleta Independent School District - an urban district of about 40,000 students. In this role, she coached campus and district leaders in transforming teacher practices and supporting student success - starting with K-2 literacy. She led the efforts to scale personalized learning from two schools in 2015 to ten in 2019–2020. Since that time, Micha has served as a lead consultant with CA Group — coaching campus and district leaders on strategic improvement efforts around blended learning and literacy rooted in the science of reading.

    Micha has a B.S. in Education with an elementary reading endorsement and Master of Educational Administration from New Mexico State University.

  • Allison Wachtel is a brand strategist, graphic designer, and communications professional who specializes in working with nonprofits and mission-driven organizations. She is passionate about doing great work for a good cause and creating beautiful products that tell compelling stories. Allison supports CA Group’s communications and storytelling efforts as they grow their impact across the state of Texas.