Four the past three years on this blog, I’ve profiled young leaders whose work in education is likely to have a transformative impact on their communities or the broader field in the next 10-20 years. These individuals have included teachers, charter school leaders, non-profit leaders, advocates, policy wonks, researchers, and tech entrepreneurs. Many of them have gone on to do amazing things in the few short years since I first profiled them. Profiling these individuals has also been a great blessing for me; they’ve challenged my thinking in numerous ways and I’ve learned a great deal from them.
This year I’m pleased to publish my fourth list of young education leaders. These amazing people include a teacher and teachers union leader, a principal, a district leader, an organizer and advocate, education technology leaders, and researchers. In their interviews, they discuss some of the most challenging issues and exciting opportunities in public education today, including school accountability, personalized learning, empowering teachers, and the relationship of education outcomes and reform to broader social justice questions. I think you’ll enjoy hearing from them, too:
- Dan Caroll, Co-Founder and COO, Clever, Inc.
- Madaline Edison, Executive Director, Educators for Excellence Minnesota
- Anne Hyslop, Policy Analyst, New America Foundation
- Joe Manko, Principal, Liberty Elementary School, Baltimore City Public Schools
- Morgan Polikoff, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
- Shauntel Poulson, Principal, NewSchools Venture Fund
- Elliot Sanchez, Founder and CEO, mSchool
- Shakera Walker, Senior Manager of Teacher Leadership and Professional Development, Boston Public Schools
- William Wong, Teacher, Gabrielino High School and President, San Gabriel Teachers Association
While I’m very excited to share my conversations with these interesting and inspiring people, I’m also somewhat sad to say that this is the last time I’ll publish this series on this blog. When I started this series 4 years ago, I was, at 31, in roughly the same demographic as the young leaders I profiled. As I prepare to turn 36 later this year and age out of the target demographic for this series, it seems like time to hand this project off. Readers of this blog may also have noticed that my posting has become much more sporadic in the past year, as I’ve taken on additional responsibilities in my day job, so I’ll be closing up this blog at the end of the series in order to focus on my Bellwether work and a new Bellwether team blog we’ll be launching soon. Fortunately, Ed Week’s editors assure me that all the blog archives will remain available on the site, so the past interview series will continue to be available here for the foreseeable future.