Dr. Kelly M. Walton is a results-driven thought leader with extensive experience and achievement in the public sector, leading and managing multi-million-dollar programs from concept to implementation. She has 20+ years of experience in K-12 leadership, education management, and secondary school transformation. She has worked closely with internal and external stakeholders, from students to superintendents. She has also worked closely with national education/business leaders and experts from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, MDRC, McKinsey and Company, American Institutes for Research, WestEd, and the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.
Since 2010, Dr. Walton has consulted full-time. She is the founder and principal partner of Ed Solutions Alliance, LLC, where she is responsible for leading a synergistic network of professionals with the expertise to provide comprehensive consultative services and professional development for schools, nonprofits, community-based, and youth-serving organizations. A highlight of Dr. Walton’s major projects were two multiyear projects with MDRC. One project, “The National Investing in Innovation Evaluation of the Diplomas Now Model,” is the U.S. Department of Education’s largest-scale evaluation of a secondary school reform model. Additionally, Dr. Walton has consulted for numerous organizations providing coaching support, professional development, qualitative data collection, and overall thought leadership in her areas of specialization. One of those areas is the end-to-end grant life cycle—grant readiness, writing, management, reporting, and sustainability. Her most recent client list includes ETS, MDRC, National Black Child Development Institute, and SERVE-University.
Before consulting, Dr. Walton worked for several K-12 districts, including Dekalb County Schools (GA) and Atlanta Public Schools.