A Vancouver native who went on to help start a successful charter school in Oakland, Calif., has been selected to be part of a nationwide program about education reform taking place next week.
Laura Kretschmar, a 1990 Fort Vancouver High School graduate, will participate in Education Nation, a project of NBC News. A teacher roundtable will be broadcast at 9 a.m. Sunday on the MSNBC cable network. Anchor Brian Williams will moderate. Kretschmar told her mother, Margaret Kretschmar of Vancouver, that she wasn’t yet sure that she will be part of the televised discussion. The Education Nation project will take place over several days.
Margaret Kretschmar said that after Laura graduated from college, she taught in New Orleans for two years as part of Teach For America, a national program that boosts educational opportunities for children from disadvantaged places. Then, after obtaining a master’s degree at Harvard University, she went on to Oakland, where she helped found and still teaches at Lighthouse Community Charter School.
