Jane is currently retired and living in her home state of North Carolina. She does the occasional education consultancy, while also exploring her interests in politics, art, music and documentary research.
Most recently, she has been involved in work around early grade reading. She provided leadership in developing an international network for early grade reading, including supporting training for professionals in the early literacy community. She has also designed projects and workshops in early grade reading and education in emergencies, and provided field-based technical assistance on theory of change and evidence-based practice for various organizations.
From 2007 to 2010, Jane was living in Cairo, Egypt as the Chief of Party (COP) of a $90 million dollar USAID-funded education project. The Education Reform Project (ERP) worked with schools, communities, teachers and administrators to implement a school-based reform (SBR) approach to reinventing Egypt’s entire education system. Jane provided leadership for education innovations such as policy reform of the adult literacy system, civil society engagement in the SBR movement, reform of the teacher professional development system, school accreditation, capacity building at all levels of the Ministry, and early grade reading programs.
Jane said that the work was exciting, interesting and demanding. If she had known how great being a COP could be, she would have taken it up earlier: "Who knew being the boss and having a little power was so much fun?"
Before her involvement in the ERP, Jane served for 3 years as director of the EQUIP 1 program at the American Institutes of Research in Washington DC. She returned there after her time in Egypt, leading the development and management of their international programs in education, workforce, and health, as well as the development and implementation of education standards and assessment.
Right after finishing her degree at CIE, Jane spent 10 years with CARE USA, during which she established CARE's worldwide program in Basic and Girls' Education.
Jane continues to be a staunch supporter of CIE, and is in contact with other CIE graduates like Hassan Mohamed in Afghanistan, Doc Coster in Egypt, Debbie Fredo for work in Mali, and Jennie Campos. Now that she is retired she travels and visits other CIE graduates regularly. She recently joined a Tuesday Dialogue at CIE to share some of her insights from a lifetime of work in development education. [11-16]
Email: jtbenbow@gmail.com