Background
Whittle was born in Etowah, Tennessee.
Whittle was born in Etowah, Tennessee.
University of Tennessee.
He is the chief executive officer of Avenues: The World School, a planned international system of independent pre-K-12 schools. Avenues opened its first campus in New York City in fall 2012. Previously he headed several publishing ventures, including serving as publisher of Esquire magazine and leading Whittle Communications, and founded (now EdisonLearning) with Benno C. Schmidt, Junior.
After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a major in American Studies, Whittle started the magazine Knoxville in a Nutshell with Phillip Moffitt and others
He started the 13-30 Corporation in Knoxville.
In 1979 13-30 bought Esquire magazine, where Whittle served as chairman and publisher for a number of years. In 1986, 13-30 became Whittle Communications, which was one of America"s top 100 media companies in the late 1980s - known for creating and publishing single-advertiser magazines that were placed in medical office waiting rooms.
In 1989, Whittle Communications launched Channel One News, a national in-school television news program (first anchored by Kenny Rogers Junior, Brian Tochi, Michele Ruiz, Hicks Neal, Kathy Kronenberger and Mark Carter). Whittle sold the company in 1994.
He is the author of Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education, published in 2005, and wrote a chapter on the rise of global schooling for Customized Schooling: Beyond Whole-School Reform, published by Harvard Education Press in 2011.
Whittle sits on the board of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, District of Columbia
Whittle serves on the board of EdisonLearning (formerly ).the company he founded with Benno C. Schmidt, Junior. in 1992. Edison was an early pioneer in public/private partnerships in K-12 education in America. EdisonLearning now serves 450,000 students on three continents through the schools it operates and a variety of other educational programs. was a public company from 1999 to 2003, with its stock traded on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation. After reaching a high of close to United States dollar$40 per share in early 2001, shares fell as low as 14 cents.
The company was taken private in 2003, in a buyout which valued the company at $180 million or $1.76 per share.