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Dr. Blumer teaches in and is the chair of the Boston College Graduate School Educational Administration and Higher Education Department. Prior to Boston College, he worked in public education for 35 years as a teacher, counselor, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent of schools. He is also a past President of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. Dr. Blumer received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from Northeastern University and his Ed.D. degree from Boston College.

Donna Rodrigues is a Program Director for the Early College Initiative at Jobs for the Future in Boston, Massachusetts. For 35 years prior to this position, she was an outstanding and well-recognized leader in public education. Her success as the founding principal of University Park Campus School (UPCS), a public school collaboration with Clark University, has been well documented by CNN, and featured in the *New York and LA Times*, and *the Christian Science Monito*r. Recently named the highest performing high school in Massachusetts, and ranked number 68 in the top 100 high schools in the country in Newsweek, UPCS is existence proof that the achievement gap for students of color, students living in poverty, and students who are English Language Learners can be challenged and defied. The schools population, students from the most economically challenged part of the city, enters the seventh grade with skills 3 to 4 years behind grade level. These same students have scored advanced or proficient on the states graduation required exam (MCAS), and have been accepted to, and are attending college. The accomplishment is outstanding and exemplary of what can happen. Donna speaks across the country about the challenges and outcomes of a prep school education for all.

Now a history professor at George Mason University, Roger Wilkins served as an editor at *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, and *The Washington Star*. It was at *the Post* that he shared in the Pulitzer Prize for that paper's reporting on the Watergate scandal.

Nancy S. Seasholes is an independent scholar, a Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at Boston University, and periodically teaches at the Harvard University Extension School. *Walking Tours of Boston's Made Land *is the companion to her earlier book, *Gaining Ground* (2003).

Elizabeth Warren Warren is the junior U.S. Senator for Massachusetts. She made her life's work the fight for middle class families and became an expert on bankruptcy and an outspoken critic of consumer lenders. She is widely credited for the original thinking, political courage, and relentless persistence that led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren spent nearly 20 years as a professor of law at[ Harvard University,](http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=82 "Warren at Harvard") She is the author of several books including, *The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke*.