Staff
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Amber Arellano is the executive director of The Education Trust-Midwest. Arellano has more than two decades of experience in journalism, public policy and strategic public relations. Most recently she was a columnist and editorial board writer for The Detroit News, where she used the News' online platform of more than 1.2 million unique visitors a month to advocate on behalf of low-income and urban students. In 2009 the National Association of Hispanic Journalists named her Commentator of the Year for what it called her influential and crusading coverage of Michigan education. Throughout her career she has covered immigration, politics and education in the Midwest, Southern California, and Mexico. She won national awards for her work as the Race Relations Reporter at The Detroit Free Press. She served at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Executive Office in Geneva, Switzerland. Her work has spanned the corporate, governmental and non-profit sectors while maintaining a focus on providing a voice for the voiceless.
Arellano holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy, where she specialized in poverty and employment policy. She earned her bachelor's degree in secondary education and journalism from Michigan State University, and studied at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico. She has taught and mentored students of every age, from elementary school to high school and at Michigan State University. A Michigan native and daughter of a respected community activist mom and United Auto Worker father, she is the first in her family to go to college. She is passionate about making sure all Michigan kids have access to great public schools and a shot at their own American dream.
Nicole Fury is the Operations Assistant at Ed Trust-Midwest. Fury comes to Ed Trust-Midwest having completed both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from EMU. During her time at EMU, Nicole obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration with a human resource concentration. She then proceeded to obtain her Master of Science in human resources and organizational development. Nicole’s graduate work provided her with the opportunity to become familiar with a non-profit organization, The Buster Foundation, for which she volunteers her time and talents. Nicole’s energy, desire to work with people, and her advocacy makes her particularly well-suited for being a part of the team at Ed Trust-Midwest to help all Michigan students.
Donnell Green is the operations manager for The Education Trust-Midwest. Donnell's broad business experience affords her the opportunity to handle operations, human resources, grant management and office liaison work. A native Michigander raised in Waterford and currently residing in Rochester, Green holds a bachelor's degree from Oakland University in elementary education (certified K-8), and has completed coursework toward her master's degree in early childhood education at Oakland University. While completing her degree in elementary education, Green worked in diverse classrooms ranging from Detroit, Pontiac, Oxford and Rochester to work with Michigan students. She is a proud mother of two students in Michigan public schools.
Drew Jacobs is the data and policy analyst for The Education Trust-Midwest. Jacobs' career includes work with teachers unions, government, non-profit organizations, and faith communities to improve the educational experience of public school students. Prior to joining ETM, Jacobs was the State Network Organizer for Tennessee's Safe Routes to School program. In addition, Drew taught world geography at LaVilla School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was involved in curriculum development. A Royal Oak, Michigan native, Drew holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in social studies education with a focus on urban and under-resourced education. He earned a Master of Public Policy from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College.
Sarah Winchell Lenhoff is the director of policy and research at Ed Trust-Midwest. Lenhoff has deep experience in education inside and outside the classroom, particularly in the areas of instructional improvement and teacher evaluation. In her research career, Sarah's mixed-methods work has focused on teacher evaluation, instructional improvement, school reform and civic education. She co-authored a chapter on assessing teachers for tenure in the 2010 book Teacher Assessment and the Quest for Teacher Quality. Lenhoff recently defended her dissertation for a doctoral degree in educational policy from Michigan State University. Her dissertation focuses on externally-sponsored instructional improvement in Michigan, a timely topic for educators and policymakers.
Lenhoff also taught reading, writing, and journalism as a middle school teacher in New York City Public Schools and ran an after-school program for high school students through a unique public-private partnership. In addition, she has also worked as a research analyst and policy interviewer for The New Teacher Project and as a graduate instructor in MSU's teacher preparation program. She has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Hinman Graduate Fellowship, and honors from the American Education Finance Association (AEFA) and the University Council for Educational Administration. She has presented papers at American Educational Research Association, AEFA, and the University of Georgia. She holds a bachelor's degree in English and women's studies from the University of Georgia and a master's degree in teaching from Pace University. Sarah grew up in Kansas but is now a proud Detroit city resident.
David Zeman is the Director of Content and Communications at the Education Trust-Midwest. Most recently he served as the Investigative Editor at the Detroit Free Press where he directed projects that won journalism's highest national honors including the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award, the Worth Bingham Prize and the National Headliner Public Service Award. He brings a deep passion for playing a watchdog role on behalf of Michigan families, a role which he has played for more than two decades.
As a senior editor and reporter, David built a national reputation of exposing inadequate government programs and identifying solutions. He won state and national awards for watchdog reporting on education, politics, the legal system and business, projects that ignited reforms and legislation. Before the Free Press, Zeman was a reporter at The Miami Herald and The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Zeman holds a law degree from the University of Miami and was a litigator in Miami before turning to journalism. He has a Master's in Journalism from Columbia University in New York City. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Zeman was born in Detroit, the son of a Detroit public school teacher.
