Mike Hanson is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is the founding partner of The JMH Team, Inc., specializing in executive coaching and strategic advising to education systems and state agencies across the U.S. He serves as the Superintendent Advisor to LEAs working with the California Collaborative for Excellence in Education. He is the former superintendent of California's third-largest urban school district and co-founder and inaugural president of CORE. This nonprofit organization seeks to improve student achievement by fostering highly productive, meaningful collaboration and learning between California's largest school districts. Mike is a California Education Partners board member and serves as the Chair of the Board for Valley Children's Healthcare System, where he also chairs the compensation committee.

Before his 12-year tenure as superintendent, Mike served in many roles as a public educator in New York and California, including deputy superintendent, high school principal, social science teacher, and coach.

His work has focused on teacher, school, and district improvement through building capacity in others, systems knowledge, formalized collaborative relationships, and improved governance. His work in continuous improvement focuses on issues of equity and access, and organizational transformation. Areas of demonstrated expertise include improved student achievement, improved behavior of students, increased diversity of high-quality human capital, systems alignment, and leadership development systems. Mike is a California native who lives in Sacramento with his wife, Julie. They laugh constantly with their four adult children.