Gislaine Ngounou is worried about the future of democracy and public education in the United States.
Ngounou has spent her career in and around education, from the Kansas City school system through Hartford Public Schools and PDK International. These days she is serving as the president and CEO of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Nellie Mae was founded in 1990 with a mission to “stimulate transformative change of public education in New England.” These days it is focused on a mission to use “its power and privilege as a philanthropic institution to advance racial equity.”
That stance has drawn the enmity of some conservative groups. The right-wing Influence Watch, for instance, claims the foundation is “oriented around furthering critical race theory-aligned policies in the region’s public education system, because anyone who discusses equity and race will inevitably be charged with pushing critical race theory.
