ACT Board of Directors

J. Theodore Sanders
President
Education Commission of the States

J. Theodore Sanders, Education Commission of the States (ECS) president, has broad experience as an educator. He has been a classroom teacher, the chief state school officer in three states, acting U.S. secretary of education and, most recently, a university president. Sanders came to ECS in February 2000 from Southern Illinois University, where he had served as president since 1995.

From 1991-95, he was Ohio superintendent of public instruction, and from 1989 to 1991, served as deputy U.S. secretary of education. From November 1990 to March 1991, he was acting U.S. secretary of education. Sanders served as Illinois state superintendent of education from 1985 to 1989, after six years in the same position in Nevada. Earlier, he taught in the Mountain Home, Idaho, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (Albuquerque, New Mexico) public school systems, and worked for the New Mexico Department of Education.

Sanders received his Ed.D. in educational administration and higher education from the University of Nevada-Reno. He holds a master’s degree in teaching mathematics from Washington State University and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wayland Baptist University in Texas.

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