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Forum 2007: "Do Americans Care if Politicians Care About Public Education?"
March 26, 2007
Gallup Organization, Washington, D.C.
Biographies
Richard W. Riley, Forum Co-chair
Richard W. Riley was the U.S Secretary of Education between 1993 and 2001 and the governor of South Carolina between 1979 and 1987. Riley currently is a senior partner with the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP, where he counsels clients and works with partners to develop strategy on complex business, governance, financial, and legal matters for local, national and international clients. Riley has remained an ambassador for improving education in the United States and abroad. He is a distinguished professor at his alma mater, Furman University, and serves as advisory board chair of the university’s Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics and Public Leadership. In addition, he provides leadership and serves in an advisory and collaborative capacity with many other entities across the nation and abroad that support education improvement. Riley has received numerous education and public service awards, along with honorary degrees from colleges and universities in the United States and around the world.
Thomas H. Kean, Forum Co-chair
On December 16, 2002, Thomas Kean was named by President George W. Bush to head the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. The commission’s work culminated on July 22, 2004, with the release of the 9/11 Commission Report. Its recommendations resulted in the largest intelligence reform in the nation’s history. Kean currently serves as the chairman of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, a nonprofit entity created with private funds to continue the commission’s work of guarding against future attacks. As New Jersey’s governor between 1982 and 1990, Kean was rated among America’s most effective state leaders by Newsweek magazine. His administration was noted for tax cuts that spurred 750,000 new jobs, a federally replicated welfare reform program; landmark environmental policies, and more than 30 education reforms. While governor, he served on the President’s Education Policy Advisory Committee and chaired the Education Commission of the States and the National Governor’s Association Task Force on Teaching. Kean served as president of Drew University from 1990 until 2005. During his tenure, he focused on shaping Drew into one of the nation’s leading small liberal arts universities by stressing the primacy of teaching, the creative use of technology in the liberal arts, and the importance of international education. He holds more than 30 honorary degrees and numerous awards from environmental and educational organizations. Kean currently serves as chairman of the board of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest health philanthropy.
Wendy D. Puriefoy, President, Public Education Network
Wendy D. Puriefoy, a nationally recognized expert on school reform and civil society, has been president of Public Education Network (PEN), the nation’s largest network of community-based school reform organizations, since it was founded in 1991. Under her visionary leadership, PEN has grown into a national network of local education funds reaching more than 11 million children in 1,220 school districts and 18,000 schools nationwide. Puriefoy has been deeply involved in school reform since the 1970s when she served as a special monitor of the court-ordered desegregation plan for Boston’s public schools. As PEN president, she has been the leading force behind systemic reform initiatives in school finance and governance, curriculum and assessment, parent involvement, school libraries and school health. With support from national foundations, PEN has launched multi-million dollar public engagement initiatives focused on teacher quality, standards and accountability, and schools and community services. Puriefoy is also a noted leader in the philanthropic world. Prior to being recruited as president of PEN, Puriefoy was executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Boston Foundation, a community foundation with an endowment of over $750 million supporting public health/welfare, educational, cultural, environmental, and housing programs in Boston, Massachusetts. Puriefoy serves on the boards of numerous high-profile national organizations including DEMOS, Hasbro Children’s Foundation, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the National Center for Family Philanthropy. In the past, Puriefoy served on the boards of FairTest, Jobs for the Future, Milton Hershey School, Ms. Foundation for Women, The PEW Forum on Standards-Based Reform, Women and Philanthropy, the National Charities Information Bureau, the Council on Foundations, Teach for America, Children’s Express, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Boston Annenberg Challenge.
Connie Rath, Forum Host
Connie Rath is vice chair and dean of leadership for The Gallup Organization. In her role, she focuses on management and leadership education for Gallup University. Each year, more than 50,000 people participate in Gallup University courses, which are offered online, at client locations, or at the university’s U.S. and international campuses. She serves as a designer for the MBA program in executive leadership that Gallup offers in partnership with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Rath is vice chair of the Gallup International Research and Education Center (GIREC), which includes senior scientists from the fields of survey research, positive psychology, and leadership studies. She leads GIREC’s Gallup faculty and adjunct professors, who often say they appreciate the center’s combination of academic and business applications. Prior to assuming her current role, Rath’s Gallup career focused on researching and managing Gallup’s selection and development services. She led Gallup’s human resources efforts for 20 years. Rath also has experience consulting with school districts and developing teacher and administrator selection instruments. She has designed numerous performance and compensation systems and consulted with companies on implementing them. Rath’s professional and community activities have included many school and business partnerships. She is a member of the board of directors of Public Education Network and also has served on the board of trustees for the Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Institute, the advisory council for the Department of Management and Organizations at the University of Iowa, and the board of advisors for the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland.
PANELISTS
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter has been the senior editor and columnist at Newsweek since 1991 and has been a contributing correspondent for NBC News since 1996. The multiple-award winning writer has examined many issues in his columns, including education, politics, media, and social and global matters. Alter covered the last six presidential campaigns for Newsweek and has authored more than 50 cover stories. He regularly interviews American presidents and other world leaders. In 1995, Alter was selected as one of the nation’s most influential media critics in a survey of leading media executives and scholars published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. Prior to joining Newsweek as an associate editor for the Nation section in 1983, Alter was an editor at Washington Monthly and has been a freelance writer for publications such as the New Republic, Esquire, and the New York Times.
He is the co-author of Selecting a President, co-editor of Inside the System and the author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, which was recently published by Simon and Schuster.
Ed Goeas
Ed Goeas is president and CEO of The Tarrance Group, one of the most respected and successful Republican survey research and strategy teams in American politics. Widely recognized as one of the country’s leading political strategists, Goeas and his partners Dave Sackett and Brian Tringali currently serve as pollster to 5 Republican governors, 10 U.S. Senators, and 47 Republican Members of Congress. In addition to his campaign work, Goeas works in partnership with Democratic pollster Celinda Lake on the nationally recognized “Battleground” poll - one of the country’s most respected political research programs. Lake and Goeas also conduct an array of bipartisan issue work for organizations nationwide, providing a balanced perspective on key issues facing the nation. Goeas consults on many policy concerns including education policy, health care, immigration law, and youth voting trends. Goeas has been widely published in professional and academic journals. Frequently sought as a political analyst, Goeas regularly appears on national public affairs programs. During the 1994 election cycle, Goeas was recognized by Democratic and Republican members of the American Association of Political Consultants as "Pollster of the Year.” In more than 30 years of working in politics, he has served as the national political director of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), a field operative for the Republican National Committee, campaign manager in several campaigns, and chief of staff to a member of Congress.
Celinda Lake
Celinda Lake is president of Lake Research Partners and is one of the Democratic Party's leading political strategists, serving as tactician and senior advisor to the national party committees, dozens of Democratic incumbents and challengers at all levels of the electoral process. Lake and her firm are known for cutting edge research on issues including the economy, health care, the environment and education, and have worked for a number of institutions including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Governor's Association (DGA), The White House Project, AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, NARAL, Human Rights Campaign, Emily's List and the Kaiser Foundation. Her interviews and statistics have been quoted in many major national newspapers and magazines, and she has appeared on numerous television and radio news programs. Lake is one of the nation's foremost experts on electing women candidates and on framing issues to women voters. She is renowned for her groundbreaking research on single women voters in conjunction with Women's Voices Women Vote and has helped elect numerous female candidates, including Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Governor Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.), Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the first Southern woman elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right. She also was instrumental in helping elect Patricia Madrid as the first Hispanic woman to serve as New Mexico’s attorney general, and played a significant role in the election of Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate. Lake also works for Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to forming Lake Research Partners, Lake was partner and vice president at Greenberg-Lake.
Jim Margolis
Jim Margolis, a senior partner at GMMB, has worked for years at the intersection of politics, advertising and advocacy on behalf of candidates, foundations, government agencies and corporate clients. In the political world, Margolis owns some of the best win/loss records of any consultant in the nation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Governor Jim Doyle (D-Wis.) are among the leaders who count on him for advertising and communications counsel. Margolis also has served as a key strategist in U.S. presidential campaigns, with GMMB acting as the lead agency for Bill Clinton’s election to the White House. Margolis also has provided advertising and strategic advice for associations, interest groups, foundations, labor organizations and businesses. His clients have included The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cisco Systems, The League of Conservation Voters, CWA, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, the Fannie Mae Foundation, The Disney Channel, The Discovery Channel and many state and federal agencies.
Jay Mathews
Jay Mathews is an author, education reporter and columnist with the Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. He started at the Post in 1971, writing news reports and books about China, disability rights, the stock market, and several educational topics. Mathews won the 1999 Benjamin Fine Award for Outstanding Education Reporting. His column Class Struggles, appears weekly on the online version of the Washington Post. Mathew's book Escalante: The Best Teacher in America traces Jaime Escalante’s career from his native Bolivia to East Los Angeles, where he taught advanced mathematics courses to mostly Latino disadvantaged high school students. Escalante's story was the subject of the film Stand and Deliver. Another book, Class Struggle: What's Wrong (and Right) with America's Best Public High Schools, was published in March 1998. It explored elite American public high schools and criticized the selection process that offers Advanced Placement (AP) studies only to top students. His rating system for high schools, the Challenge Index, is used by the Washington Post and Newsweek annually to rank U.S. high schools. His other books explore the admissions system of Ivy League colleges and universities, and the growth of international baccalaureate and their effect on academic improvement.
Frank Newport
Dr. Frank Newport is editor-in-chief of The Gallup Poll and is in charge of the nation's best-known and longest-running continuous monitor of American public opinion. The Gallup Poll conducts more than 60,000 interviews each year, and, in partnership with USA Today, provides up-to-the-minute and comprehensive polling on political and topical issues. Newport also is vice president of the National Council on Public Polls, serves on the executive council of the American Association of Public Opinion Research, and is a member of the board of directors of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He is the author of Polling Matters — Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People and co-author (with Stuart Rothenberg) of The Evangelical Voter. Newport contributed to the book series Where America Stands, and to The Ethnic Voter and Ethnic Voters and National Issues. With Alec Gallup, He is the co-editor (with Alec Gallup) of The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 2004 and 2005. His articles and op-ed pieces have appeared in many publications, including the American Sociological Review, Public Opinion Quarterly, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Newport appears regularly on CNBC's "Kudlow and Company" and other television and cable news shows. He is the on-air host of Gallup's daily webcast program "The Daily Briefing" at www.galluppoll.com.. He is author of weekly analyses on The Gallup Poll Web site and has a regular weekly program on NPR affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia. His new blog, "Gallup Guru," appears on www.usatoday.com.
MODERATOR
Jerry Zremski
Jerry Zremski was elected president of the National Press Club in December 2006 and has been a Washington-based reporter for the Buffalo News since 1989. He became the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief in January 2007. In addition, Zremski has served as an embedded correspondent during the Iraq War, covering the U.S. Army’s V Corps, the command unit overseeing the Army’s combat troops in the conflict. Zremski spent the 1999-2000 academic year as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, where he studied economics and politics. He has won many awards over the years, including the Best in the Business Breaking News award from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors in 2002 for coverage of the Adelphia scandal. He also won the New York State Publishers Association Award for political reporting in 1998, for "Cities on the Skids," a series detailing how federal and state politics damaged New York's cities. Zremski joined the Buffalo News in 1984 as a business reporter. He started his professional journalism career in 1982 with the Knickerbocker News in Albany, N.Y. Zremski also was an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Maryland between 2001 and 2006.
About Public Education Network and The Gallup Organization
Public Education Network (www.publiceducation.org) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization of local education funds and individuals working to improve public schools and build citizen support for quality public education. PEN recently launched Give Kids Good Schools (www.givekidsgoodschools.org) to give Americans the tools and information they need to “Learn, Vote, Act” on behalf of quality public education for every child.
Public Education Network wishes to thank The Gallup Organization for their generous sponsorship of this forum. The Gallup Organization (www.gallup.com) has studied human nature and behavior for more than 70 years. Gallup employs many of the world's leading scientists in management, economics, psychology, and sociology. Gallup consultants help organizations attain their financial goals by increasing customer engagement and maximizing employee productivity through measurement tools, coursework, and strategic advisory services. Gallup's 2,000 professionals deliver services at client organizations, through the Web, at Gallup University's campuses, and in 40 offices around the world.
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