Education

Educators, Activists And Journalists Who Defined The Decade


There have been a lot of education-focused roundups and reviews of the 2010-2019 era — some of them quite good.

But none that I’ve seen have focused on the individual people who have defined the decade, education’s version of Greta Thunberg or Donald Trump.

That’s unfortunate, given how important the role of individuals can be in shaping the public narrative and the course of events.

To help sort things out, here are seven educators, activists, parents, and journalists whose work defined the 2010s. Take a look and then let me know if you have other, better ideas about who should be included:

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7: Elizabeth Green, cofounder, Chalkbeat and the American Journalism Project, who joined Philissa Cramer and Alan Gottlieb in creating a nonprofit education journalism network that recently announced plans to be in 18 different parts of the country by 2025.

Concerned about journalism writ large, Green also helped create the American Journalism Project, whose goal is to raise $50 million to bolster local journalism. Read more about her here.

6: Karen Lewis, former president of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, a longtime chemistry teacher who rose to head the Chicago teachers union and helped launch the current era of teacher strikes and walkouts during much of the decade.

In 2011, she gave a fiery and controversial speech in which she criticized media coverage and mocked then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan for a speech impediment. You can watch it here. The big Chicago teachers strike, which set the model for many to follow, came a year later.

5: Lezley McSpadden, mother of Mike Brown, the Ferguson teenager who was killed by police the summer of 2014, who addressed dismal educational outcomes for kids like her son in a local TV interview shortly after losing him: “You know how many black men graduate? Not many.”

Watch the unforgettable and heartbreaking interview here.

4: Stephen Colbert and head booker Emily Lazar, who made Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report a major (generally pro-reform) part of the education debate in the first half of the decade.

Here’s a typical education segment from Colbert in 2014. After Colbert left in 2015, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver took over some of the same late-night education commentary role, with a perspective that was much more critical of charter schools and accountability-based testing.

3: Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times reporter who single-handedly refocused education journalism on school segregation and racial inequality through a series of articles and podcasts, then led a new national conversation on the history and legacy of slavery through her #1619 project.

Read more about her accomplishments here.

2: Diane Ravitch, former Bush Administration Assistant Secretary of Education, who famously switched from pro-reform to anti- ad in the process became the unofficial head of the effort to roll back Obama-era school improvement efforts.

Watch her interview with John Stewart in 2011, talking about the perils of choice and testing. With a new book coming out anytime now, she’s not done yet.

1: Arne Duncan, former U.S Secretary of Education, who oversaw the massive federal Race to the Top initiative, the much-reviled School Improvement Grant program, and took the lead on the Common Core academic standards initiative.

Normally unflappable and bland, Duncan’s most controversial moment may have been a 2013 speech to school superintendents when he lamented the alarmed response of “white suburban moms” to the Common Core standards, concerned that “that their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were.” He stayed with the Obama administration until 2015.

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Of course, this list is highly limited and completely arbitrary. There are many other people who helped shape the education landscape in the 2010s.

Other people who played a major role include former Newark superintendent Cami Anderson, the opt-out parents protesting against standardized testing, the Parkland activist students, the Newtown shooter (whose name I prefer not to state), APM Reports education journalist Emily Hanford, Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Washington DC schools head and StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee, and former Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall, who presided over that district’s infamous cheating scandal.

Think you can do better? Tweet at me at @alexanderrusso and tell me all about it.

 



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