Two decades leading federal programs from the inside.

Our Story

Education Foundations, LLC was founded by Dr. Alyson Lerma after two decades spent inside the systems her firm now helps clients navigate. She began as a classroom teacher, teaching Spanish and special education, before moving through district and state leadership roles that took her across nearly every layer of the PK-12 federal funding landscape: district supervisor, State Director of ESEA and IDEA Monitoring at the Tennessee Department of Education, Director of Grants at Metro Nashville Public Schools, and Director of Grants at KIPP Nashville.

Along the way she led a statewide risk-based monitoring framework, managed a district grants portfolio exceeding $500 million, and has written more than $30 million in winning competitive grant applications since 2022. She has served as a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education on various grant program competitions and has worked as a senior researcher and subject matter expert on national projects for USDOE, including as a team member of the Southeast Region 5 Comprehensive Center and as part of an IES project.

Dr. Lerma's work has spanned various school types. She has partnered with public charter schools and charter management organizations on authorization, compliance, and growth, served on Metro Nashville Public Schools' research review and charter review committees, and brings direct experience administering equitable services to non-public schools under federal Title programs. She has also served as an expert witness in federal and state litigation involving federal education funding and grant compliance, bringing the same programmatic depth to case analysis and testimony that she brings to client engagements.

Our Mission

Dr. Lerma grew up in a coal-mining region in the Appalachian mountains, an experience that shaped a lasting belief that education is a great equalizer and that every student deserves access to a high-quality education, regardless of ZIP code. That belief drives the firm's work: federal and philanthropic funding, used well, is one of the most powerful levers available for closing that gap. Education Foundations treats strategic resource acquisition and management as a core practice of transformational leadership, not a task to hand off once the vision is set. Leaders who own their resourcing strategy are the ones who can actually deliver on their mission.