Kate Baker is Executive Director of the Network for Educational Opportunity (NEO), the first organization to implement the New Hampshire Education Tax Credit Scholarships. Kate grew up in Manchester and graduated from the University of New Hampshire, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Following graduation she directed operations at a friend's small business, and then began a dual role as business manager and a performing arts teacher.
In just two years, NEO under Kate’s leadership established and grew a nationally-recognized scholarship organization that has raised more than $300,000 for scholarships. With Kate at the helm NEO engaged more than 1,500 scholarship applicants, provided 143 children with scholarships, interfaced with community leaders, repelled persistent efforts to repeal the law that makes education tax credits available, outlived a legal challenge to that law, and triumphed in a case before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
Kate’s mission is improving education. She is passionate about gifted education, homeschooling, innovative teaching and learning, and school choice. Kate is a founder of The Greater Manchester Alliance for the Gifted, the Scholars’ Academy, and the Polaris Charter School Education Foundation. She was a member of the Gifted and Talented Advisory Committee of the Manchester School District and she currently serves as Chairman of the Polaris Charter School Board of Trustees.
Kate was honored to be recognized by the New Hampshire Union Leader and the state’s Business and Industry Association as a “40 Under Forty, the state's brightest young achievers ″ and by the Peace Islands Institute and the New Hampshire Turkish Cultural Center, which awarded Kate its 2013 Education Award.
Kate remains a leader in the Granite State’s school choice movement and toward that aim she has worked tirelessly for more than a decade on behalf of New Hampshire children. She helps launch independent schools, supports homeschooling, promotes education choice and through her work at NEO she finally makes it possible for many New Hampshire families to choose the education that best fits their child’s learning needs. Kate welcomes the conversation surrounding school choice and makes it clear that, despite the gains made, bringing education choice to the Granite State has only just begun.
networkforeducation.org/