Speaker biographies
The Honorable Lamar Alexander, the senior senator from Tennessee, is the third-ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Senator Alexander has been U.S. secretary of education, president of the University of Tennessee, and the Goodman Professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was chairman of President Reagan’s Commission on Americans Outdoors and the National Governors Association. In private life, Senator Alexander helped found a company that is now the nation’s largest provider of worksite day care. As governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987, he helped his state become the third-largest auto producer and the first state to pay teachers more for teaching well. He also established the Tennessee Governor’s Schools for outstanding students.
John Cole was the vice president of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1984 to 2006. During this time, Cole served on the AFT’s Policy and Program Council for K 12 teachers, the AFT’s Democracy Committee, and the Executive Committee of the AFT. He was also the chair of the AFT’s Task Force on School Safety and Violence, vice chair of the Organizing Committee, and chair of the Democracy Committee. In addition to his work with the AFT, Mr. Cole has also served on the Texas State Board of Education’s Advisory Committee on School Performance Indicators, the National Task Force on the Future of Education, and the education committee of the Texas AFL CIO. He served six years as a member of the board of directors of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and as a vice president of the Texas AFL-CIO. From 1969 to 1976, Mr. Cole taught at Barnes Junior High School in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Chester E. Finn Jr. is a scholar, educator, and public servant who has been at the forefront of the national education debate for thirty-five years. He has served as a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, counsel to the U.S. ambassador to India, legislative director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), and assistant secretary of education for research and improvement. A senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and chairman of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Mr. Finn is also president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. He serves on the board of several other organizations concerned with primary and secondary schooling. The author or coauthor of sixteen books and more than four hundred articles, Mr. Finn’s work has appeared in such publications as The Weekly Standard, the Christian Science Monitor, Commentary magazine, The Public Interest, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Education Week, Harvard Business Review, and the Boston Globe. He has received awards from the Educational Press Association of America, Choice magazine, the Education Writers Association, and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at AEI. His many books include No Remedy Left Behind (AEI Press, 2007), Footing the Tuition Bill (AEI Press, 2007), No Child Left Behind: A Primer (Peter Lang 2006), Educational Entrepreneurship (Harvard Education Press, 2006), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings Institution, 2002), and Spinning Wheels (Brookings Institution, 1999). His work has appeared in outlets including Harvard Educational Review, Urban Affairs Review, Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Education Week, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Next, Educational Leadership, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and National Review. Mr. Hess currently serves on the review board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and as a member of the research advisory board for the National Center on Educational Accountability. He is a former high school social studies teacher and former professor of education and government at the University of Virginia.
Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, where he writes about education, equal opportunity, and civil rights. He is the author of four books, including, most recently, Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2007); All Together Now: Creating Middle Class Schools through Public School Choice (Brookings Institution Press, 2001); The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action (Basic Books, 1996); and Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School (Hill & Wang/Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1992). In addition, Mr. Kahlenberg is the editor of four Century Foundation books. His articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, among others. Mr. Kahlenberg has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR. He was previously a fellow at the Center for National Policy, a visiting associate professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, and a legislative assistant to Senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). He is also a nonresident senior fellow at Education Sector.
John Podesta is the president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress. He served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, where he was responsible for policy development, daily operations, Congressional relations, and staff activities of the White House. He also served in the president’s cabinet and as a principal on the National Security Council. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Podesta was assistant to the president; staff secretary; and a senior policy adviser on government information, privacy, telecommunications security, and regulatory policy. He is currently a visiting professor of law on the faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center, a position he also held from 1995 to 1997. On Capitol Hill, Mr. Podesta has also been counselor to Senator Thomas A. Daschle (1995–96); chief counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee (1987–88); chief minority counsel for the Senate Judiciary subcommittees on patents, copyrights, and trademarks; security and terrorism; and regulatory reform; and counsel on the majority staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee (1979–81).
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