Fred Tempes is the Director of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program at WestEd.

Tempes directs WestEd's assistance to low-performing schools and districts in Arizona, California, Nevada, Washington, and Hawaii. He oversees the design and evaluation of WestEd's approach to school improvement planning and implementation.

He also oversees professional development efforts aimed at increasing teachers' effective use of student engagement strategies, coaching principals to support instructional improvement, creating assessment and accountability systems at the local level, and enhancing English language arts instruction for English learners.

In addition, Tempes serves as Director of the national Center on School Turnaround. This federally funded comprehensive technical assistance center provides technical assistance and identifies, synthesizes, and disseminates research-based practices and emerging promising practices that will lead to the increased capacity of state education agencies to support their districts and schools in turning around their lowest-performing schools.

Tempes also serves as the Associate Director of the California Comprehensive Center, a federally funded technical assistance center charged with building the capacity of California to implement the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and close the student academic achievement gap.

Prior to joining WestEd in 1999, Tempes directed the California Department of Education's (CDE's) School and District Accountability Division, overseeing a shift from a compliance monitoring system that focused on rules and regulations to an accountability model that holds schools responsible for student learning.

He also led CDE's Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Division, where he was responsible for the development of the state's curriculum frameworks and the California Learning Assessment System.

A former Peace Corps Volunteer and Teacher Corps Intern, Tempes received a BA in economics from Stanford University, and an MA in bilingual education and PhD in international education from the University of Southern California.