Alex Medler serves as Senior Director for the National Charter School Resource Center with Safal Partners, utilizing his charter sector expertise to support NCSRC work in publishing resources and providing technical assistance to Charter School Program grantees.
Alex has been a national expert on charter school policy since the opening days of the movement. He began his work with charter schools for the Education Commission of the States (ECS), where he worked from 1992 to 1997. While at ECS Medler facilitated work in more than a dozen states as they passed charter school laws. He also conducted research that was used to shape the creation of the Federal Charter School Program (CSP). Medler received an Expert Appointment to the U.S. Department in 1997, where he served until 2001 in a variety of capacities including directing the Public Charter School Program. Medler was a founding board member and board chair of the Colorado Charter School Institute, a statewide charter authorizing entity. He worked from 2004 to 2009 at the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a children’s advocacy organization in Colorado where he designed and led their research effort and promoted various reforms to improve out comes for children. In 2008, he earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where his research interests included the politics of education reform, as well as education policy and evaluation. Medler helped lead NACSA from 2009 until 2015. He initially oversaw NACSA’s research. Later he designed and led the organization’s effort to improve state and federal policy to strengthen results in the charter school sector.