Gerry House is former president of the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA) and former Senior Vice President at Educational Testing Services (ETS). ISA is a nationally-known organization with a research- and evidence-based model and partners with schools and districts to transform low-performing high schools into academically rigorous and personalized schools that enable underachieving students to graduate prepared for success in college and careers.

House was a school superintendent in Chapel Hill, NC, and Memphis, TN, for 15 years. In both districts, she initiated a number of innovative and successful reforms that resulted in higher academic achievement and greater community advocacy and support for excellent and equitable schools. Her work has been recognized in Peter Senge’s Schools That Learn, a Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares about Education; Phillip Schlechty’s Inventing Better Schools; and Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s Confidence. House has served on many boards and commissions, including the ETS Board of Directors (chair, 2002-2005), the Harvard Urban Superintendents’ Program Advisory Board (chair), the Alliance for Excellent Education Board of Directors, Woodrow Wilson Foundation and Woodrow Wilson Graduate School of Teaching and Learning Boards of Directors, and the Adelphi University Trustee Board. She was named AASA National Superintendent of the Year and Tennessee Superintendent of the Year and was the first recipient of the Alumni Leadership Award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education. She is also the recipient of the Harold J. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.  

House holds an EdD in Education Leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MS in Counseling from Southern Illinois University, and an MS in English and Education from North Carolina A&T State University.