John Browne, Ph.D.

John Robert Browne is from Columbus, Ohio, and completed his K-12 education there followed by attending Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he completed his B.A. degree, with majors in History and American Studies.  He completed his Masters of Arts in Teaching degree from the Antioch-Putney Graduate School, a part of Antioch College. He was named a Ford Fellow in the Executive Leadership Program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he completed his doctorate in education degree.  He has taught most grades at the junior or senior high school level. While pursuing the doctorate at the University of Massachusetts, he was selected as one of nineteen individuals in the United States to be a Washington Intern in Education.  For a year, he was an intern with the National Council of Social Studies in Washington, D.C., providing leadership to their racism in teacher behavior program.  While there, he also traveled extensively around the United States with his fellow interns to study the articulation between national, state and local school district policy in the areas of desegregation and implementing educational reform. He was named one of the outstanding young men in America in 1976. 

Upon moving to San Diego, California, in 1977, Dr. Browne became the curriculum coordinator for multicultural education and social sciences for the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE).  In that role, he provided professional development for teachers in over 30 school districts in San Diego county, as well as training for educators throughout California.  He was also the Director of Leadership Development for SDCOE, leading their focus on administrative training in instructional leadership. He personally directed the SDCOE assessment process used by many San Diego school districts in deciding whom they would hire or promote to be school principals or vice principals.  In 1985, he was appointed the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction in the Grant Joint Union High School District, in Sacramento. He has also been a consultant to four state departments of education in the United States, providing leadership training for school site administrators. In 1991, he returned to San Diego for a position as the Instructional Team Leader for the Humanities (all language arts and social studies instruction) in the San Diego City Schools (SDCS).  He also served as Director of Integration Programs and School Choice for SDCS, which included oversight of all magnet, VEEP and school choice programs. He has specialized in providing leadership to reducing gaps in academic achievement.

After retiring from SDCS, Browne was selected by the state of California as an external evaluator for under-performing schools, and served in that capacity for schools in Chula Vista, San Diego, Compton, Oakland, Monterey, and West Contra Costa districts.  He was also a consultant for the Sacramento City Schools on improving the instructional leadership of all site administrators.  In 2004, he led efforts to create and then administered the San Diego Association of African American Educators’ (AAAE) Academy for Professional Development, focusing on “Effectively Teaching African American Students.”  This was a joint effort of the San Diego AAAE, the Africana Studies department of San Diego State University and the Colleges of Education and Extended Studies at SDSU.

Currently, he is an adjunct lecturer at SDSU, teaching a course titled “Liberal Studies” for pre-teaching majors and also a course titled the “Politics of Urban Education,” in the department of Africana Studies. He was recently named to the think tank of the California Alliance of Black School Educators, an organization that presented him with an ‘unsung hero’ award in March, 2007.  He is also in the 2007/08 edition of Who’s Who in American Education.