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Morgan Brown was appointed as the Department's assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement by Secretary Margaret Spellings on July 6, 2006. In his post, he leads ED's efforts to support innovations in education and make strategic investments in promising education practices, most importantly implementing the public school choice and supplemental educational services provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). He oversees the administration of 28 grant programs related to education improvement, school choice, teacher quality, technology, and arts in education. His office also disseminates information from NCLB about parental options and rights. Finally, he oversees ED's Family Policy Compliance Office and the Office of Non-Public Education—the Department's liaison to the nonpublic education community.

Prior to joining the Department, Brown worked for three years as the director of the Division of School Choice and Innovation for the Minnesota Department of Education. There, he supervised a staff of 20 and oversaw 25 programs related to school choice, charter schools, nonpublic school options, voluntary integration, supplemental educational services, American Indian Education and postsecondary scholarships.

Born in southern California, Brown grew up in Durham, N.H., as his father and mother, both college professors, pursued their careers. He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., in 1991.

After a summer fellowship at the Claremont Institute outside Los Angeles, Brown moved to Washington, D.C., and worked briefly as a research assistant for the National Republican Congressional Committee before landing a job as a legislative assistant for Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.). He stayed for three years, receiving a promotion to legislative director, before being hired by former Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.) to work as a legislative assistant on foreign affairs issues.

In 1997, he received a fellowship from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota while working for a year as the director of public policy and communications for the Minnesota Family Council in Minneapolis.

In 1998, he became the senior community affairs officer for the Twin Cities Financial (TCF) Foundation, managing the grant review process for a $2 million annual philanthropic budget.

During the next four years, he worked for two different advocacy groups in the Twin Cities area on education reform and school choice issues. From 1999 to 2000, he was the director of the Partnership for Choice in Education, and, from 2001 to 2002, he led the Minnesota Education League. Just prior to serving in the Minnesota Department of Education, Brown became a senior fellow for education policy at the Center of the American Experiment, a Minneapolis think tank.

Brown and his wife, Susan, have three sons who attend public schools in Edina, Minn.