Arthur L. “Art” Coleman is a managing partner and co-founder of EducationCounsel LLC. With extensive background in providing legal, policy, strategic planning, and advocacy services to educators throughout the country, Mr. Coleman focuses on standards reform issues; discrimination issues under federal law; and pipeline issues that address key questions of equal access and educational diversity.

Mr. Coleman’s work centers on:

• The development of assessment and accountability systems, with a focus on the use of tests for high-stakes and other purposes; and the design of educationally sound programs and access for students with disabilities and English language learners.
• The development of fully inclusive school safety policies, as well as related issues of legally protected expression.
• The development of enrollment management and related educational policies designed to enhance access and the educational benefits of diversity, with a focus on student financial aid, admissions and outreach policies; faculty employment policies; and linkages in the development of higher education accreditation standards.
• The design of strategies and implementation of plans to support not-for-profit organizations that seek to align their educationally focused goals with their core objectives, consistent with relevant policies of states, districts, and higher education institutions/systems.

Mr. Coleman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights from June 1997 until January 2000, following his three-and-a-half year tenure as Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. Mr. Coleman’s responsibility for the development of federal civil rights policy in education and enforcement of relevant federal laws centered on issues relating to standards reform, test use, students with disabilities, English language learners, affirmative action, sexual and racial harassment, and gender equity in athletics.  Mr. Coleman has testified before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; he has served as an adjunct professor at two law schools and at one graduate school of education; and he has spoken widely and published extensively regarding legal and policy issues in education.

He is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and the National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys. He is a former member of the Advisory Board for the Alliance for Excellent Education.