ERS Team
Ventura Rodriguez
Dr. Ventura Rodriguez joined ERS as a partner in September 2021. Since joining ERS, he has led numerous partnerships with school districts and state education agencies. Recent projects include conducting a resource diagnostic in the Metro Nashville Public Schools to support the alignment of resources to a multi-year strategy, developing an elementary scheduling and staffing guide for the Nebraska Department of Education, supporting Dallas ISD’s Racial Equity Working Group, and partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support a cohort of seven high schools to redesign their schedules and staffing plans aligned to priorities for student experiences.
Ventura also leads ERS’ State Practice Area. In this role, he supports ERS’ work to enable the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of effective and ambitious state-level policies that create critical enabling conditions for school and system leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time, and money) to support schools and students.
Prior to joining ERS, Ventura served as Senior Associate Commissioner for Strategic Initiatives at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), where he led efforts to diversify the state’s educator workforce and designed strategies to advance educational equity for Massachusetts students. He also led the Department’s Statewide System of Support, providing support and assistance to the state’s lowest-performing schools and districts. Ventura spent the first ten years of his career as a high school Spanish and humanities teacher in San Francisco and Nairobi, Kenya. In 2007, he founded St. HOPE Leadership Academy, a public charter school in Harlem, where he served as executive director and principal. Ventura currently serves as Board Chairman for the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS), which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to more than 154,000 active and retired teachers, administrators, and their families.
Outside of work, Ventura can be found on soccer fields and in dance studios throughout New England cheering on his three kids. He loves to cook, travel, and go on hikes.
Previous Experience
Senior Associate Commissioner for Strategic Initiatives
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
High school Spanish and humanities teacher
San Francisco and Nairobi, Kenya
Founder, Executive Director, and Prinicpal
St. HOPE Leadership Academy, Harlem
Board Chairman
Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System
Education
Ed.L.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ed. M., Education
San Francisco State University
B.A., History
University of San Francisco