Dan Adams

As Associate Director for Data & Research, Dan leads Advance CTE's Data & Research team and is responsible for Advance CTE’s data quality and initiatives to promote data-driven decision-making among state CTE leaders and within the organization.

Dan's commitment to education in pursuit of equity and equity in pursuit of social justice was the reason he started his career as a middle school STEM teacher. Most recently, he served as the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission's Statewide Director of Career Pathways where he collaborated with stakeholders to promote the equity impacts of investments in career pathways. In 2022, based in part on a first-of-its-kind data system he helped build, the Oregon Legislature passed and Governor Brown signed Future Ready Oregon into law. The law invested $200M in education and training, including $17M for career pathways in Oregon, a nearly tenfold increase.

As Accountability and Data Specialist at the Oregon Department of Education, Dan authored numerous research briefs and provided invited testimony before the Oregon House and Senate on the equity impact of investments in career and technical education. Based in part on his findings and testimony, in 2019 the Oregon legislature passed the Oregon School Success Act, which invested an additional $300M in interventions including secondary CTE.

Commitment to education equity and social justice informs Dan's private life as well. As Co-Chair of Oregon Safe Schools and Communities Coalition, he was honored to be the first signatory to the state’s LGBTQ2SIA+ Student Success Plan which was signed into law in July of 2021. As Co-Chair of the PTO's Family Engagement Committee, Dan was honored to contribute to Seaton Elementary School receiving the Human Rights Campaign's Welcoming School Seal of Excellence in 2023.