Mashea Ashton Chicago, Illinois

Mashea Ashton currently serves as Midwest Regional Director for the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), an education initiative focused creating a national network of schools for educationally disadvantaged middle school students. As Midwest Regional Director, Mashea works to establish and maintain relationships with key decisionmakers throughout the region to ensure that facilities, funding and freedom are in place in time for the KIPP Network Schools to open in July of each year.

Prior to joining KIPP, Mashea worked at Leadership for Quality Education’s Charter School Resource Center (CRSC). In addition to executing the legislative drive to strengthen the charter school law in Illinois, Mashea provided day-to-day technical assistance to Chicago and suburban charter schools, and guidance to individuals and groups interested in starting charter schools.

Mashea also served several years as a special education teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Mashea focused on collaborating with general education teachers to mainstream students with disabilities in the regular education environment.

Mashea has a M.Ed in Special Education with emphasis on learning disabilities and emotional disturbance and a B.A in Sociology and Elementary Education from the College of William and Mary. Her master’s research focused on the disproportionately high number of minority students in special education classes, how to build positive classroom environments and motivating students with learning disabilities. As an undergraduate, she researched topics relating to minority student achievement, assessment and motivation. During her summers at William and Mary Mashea served as Director of Project Reclaim, a program for gifted African American middle school students that emphasized math, science, and cultural history.

A native of Willingboro, New Jersey, Mashea served as captain of nationally ranked Women’s Soccer team at the College of William and Mary and is a former consensus high school All-American. She is married to Kendrick F. Ashton, Jr. and resides in Chicago, Illinois.

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