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Federal

Team Obama

By Alyson Klein — February 25, 2008 2 min read
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Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is now the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race, both in delegates and in the popular vote. So it’s well with taking a look at his team of education advisers ... these folks could well end up staffing the U.S. Department of Education under an Obama administration. We’ve been able to track down a partial list of campaign advisers and are hoping to add more in coming days and weeks.

But a preliminary look at some of the campaign advisers shows a mix of state policymakers, academics, researchers..and luckily, for Campaign K-12 readers, a sizeable contigent of Education Week commentary authors.

Here’s a list of the folks on Team Obama, with links to some of the commentaries they’ve written on subjects ranging from teacher quality to international education...

Dr. Donald Stewart, former president of the College Board and former president of Spellman College. During his tenure the College Board, a New York City based non-profit organization, the board revamped its widely used SAT college-entrance exam, adjusted, or “recentered,” the scoring of the test, expanded the Advanced Placement program to more than half the nation’s high schools, and pushed initiatives to better prepare minority students for college, according to the Edweek archives. He wrote a commentary piece on standards and accountability, published in Ed Week back in 1994.

Dr. Fernando Reimers, Professor of International Education, Harvard University.
You can check out his views on why the United States should support the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the Paris-based body of the United Nations that promotes international cooperation in education, science, and culture, here.

Inez Tenenbaum, former state superintendent of South Carolina, who lost a 2004 Senate bid to now Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

Jeanne Century, director for Science Education and Research and Evaluation in the Center for Elementary Math and Science Education in Chicago. She wrote an interesting commentary piece last year comparing education reform to baseball. It’s worth taking a look at how she thinks policymakers should approach making changes in education.

Jonathan Crane, research director of the Coalition for Evidence Based Policy in Washington DC.

Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford University, who wrote about her “Marshall Plan” for teaching last year.

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