Leadership Team

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Sheri Few is the Founder and has served as President of South Carolina Parents Involved in Education since June 2000. She founded US Parents Involved in Education in 2014 and serves as President. Sheri led the fight against Common Core in South Carolina (SC) that ended with her candidacy for SC Superintendent of Education where she narrowly lost. She was endorsed by Phyllis Schlafly, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Sheri is known for her expertise on Common Core and education policy, and has been a featured speaker for national and local conferences and radio talk shows.

 Sandra Torosian was born and raised in California where she has been an instructional aid for 25 years. Her fight for children began in 2013 after watching "Building the Machine", and in 2014 she founded Parents Against Common Core. As an active member of Fresno County and City Republican Women Federated, she has spoken out against Common Core issues, including AP U.S. History, at Tea Party Action Nights locally and statewide and has published articles in both her local and hometown newspapers. She plans running for Trustee in the Clovis Unified School District in November, 2016.  

 Theresa Hubbard is a Commander in the United States Coast Guard Reserve with 26 years of service. She holds an Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, and a BS in Accounting from the University of South Alabama. When not serving on active duty she is involved in education issues in Alabama. She is a State Board member of the Alabama Eagle Forum, a committee member for Alabamians United for Excellence in Education (AUEE), and is currently a candidate for Mobile County School Board District Five. Theresa has spoken out against Common Core locally and statewide, and has been featured in the online news outlets Lagniappe, Yellowhammer, and Breitbart News.   

Michigan PIE President Melanie Kurdys is an accomplished business person, educator, researcher, activist and mother of three adult children and two grandchildren. Her mathematics degree from University of Michigan has enabled her to work for great companies like IBM, AT&T and Authur Young. She “retired” from Owens Corning Fiberglas as Director of Information Systems to follow her husband around the country. During that time, she was an active school volunteer and in-school math tutor in Louisiana, California, Georgia and Michigan. She was elected to her local school board and ran for Michigan State Board of Education in the 2012 election. As co-founder of Stop Common Core in Michigan, Melanie continues to be a volunteer education advocate for parents, teachers and importantly, kids.    

Lily Tang Williams was born in China before the Cultural Revolution, raised by illiterate working-class parents, Lily grew up facing poor living conditions, food rationing, Communist indoctrination, and political and social chaos under Mao’s regime. In this tumultuous environment, she quickly developed street smarts and compassion as well as the values of perseverance and hard work. Lily received her university law degree at Fudan University in Shanghai and was a faculty member of the law school for three years. She came over to the U.S. in 1988 to earn a Master's degree at the University of Texas. She is the former state chair of the Libertarian Party of Colorado and currently State Director for Our America Initiative. Lily announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate in Colorado as a Libertarian on January 12, 2016. Lily is a grassroots activist and professional speaker. She has been outspoken against Communism, Socialism, and Common Core.   

Dr. Gary Thompson is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) who completed his undergraduate education at both the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In addition to his personal experiences involving his four children in public schools, he has completed thousands of hours in training/therapy/assessment/legal advocacy work with children in both the private and public school settings in multiple western states. He is also the author of an award winning doctoral dissertation which tackled why many African American children under-perform in school, and is an expert in psychological and educational testing, as well as privacy acts surrounding the use of these tests in both private and educational settings.    

Alex Newman is an international journalist, educator, and consultant. In addition to serving as president of the small media and information-consulting firm Liberty Sentinel Media, Inc., he writes for a wide array of publications in the United States and abroad. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines such as the Gainesville Sun, Liberty magazine, Crisis magazine, The Diplomat magazine, and many more. Alex Newman currently serves as a foreign correspondent for The New American magazine and in 2014 published Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children with co-author Sam Blumenfeld.

Christel Swasey, living in Pleasant Grove, Utah, is the mother of a blended family of five children, ranging from five years of age to twenty-three. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English, a Master’s degree in Communications from Brigham Young University, and a teaching credential from California State University. She has taught at the university level, public and private high school, elementary and home school co-ops. Currently she teaches at both FreedomProject Academy, a private online school, and at George Mueller Academy, a home school center. She is an active proponent of Constitutional education and writes a blog titled What is Common Core?  

Dr. Peg Luksik is Founder and Chairman of Founded on Truth. Her valuable experience in areas of education and family issues are proven by her work for homeschoolers in Pennsylvania. Dr. Lusik was key in passing legislation that restored parent’s rights in Pennsylvania. She sat on the Founding Boards of the Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Pennsylvania Leadership conference. Dr. Luksik hosted her own television talk show called The Learning Curve as well as co-authored Outcome Based Education: The State’s Assault on our Children’s Values. As Chairman of the National Parent’s Commission, Dr. Luksik fights for parental rights in education proactively and successfully.  

Ze’ev Wurman is a senior fellow with American Principles Project, and he is a former senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Education. Between 2012 and 2014 he was a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California. In 2010 he served as a commissioner on the California Academic Content Standards Commission that evaluated the Common Core’s suitability for California adoption. He has authored multiple studies evaluating the Common Core mathematics standards and has been widely published in professional and general media.