Forum Network

Simon Jenkins, *the Guardian* columnist and former editor of the *London Evening Standard*, is returning to the evening title to write a weekly column. Jenkins, who edited *the Evening Standard* between 1976 and 1978, wrote a column on London issues in *the Evening Standard* until three years ago.

As fourth Executive Director of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy led the agency from 1995 to 2005. During her tenure, Ms. Bellamy focused on five major priorities: immunizing every child; getting all girls and boys into school, and getting all schools to offer quality basic education; reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and its impact on young people; fighting for the protection of children from violence and exploitation; and introducing early childhood programmes in every country. Under Ms. Bellamy's leadership, UNICEF became a champion of global investment in children, arguing that efforts to reduce poverty and build a more secure world can only be successful if they ensure that children have an opportunity to grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity. She challenged leaders from all walks of life to recognize their moral, social, and economic responsibility to invest in children - and to shift national resources accordingly. Ms. Bellamy earned her law degree from New York University in 1968. She is a former Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and an honorary member of Phi Alpha Alpha, the U.S. National Honor Society for Accomplishment and Scholarship in Public Affairs and Administration. Ms. Bellamy graduated from Gettysburg College in 1963. She was born and raised in the New York area.

For over forty years, Elaine Wolfensohn has been involved in the field of education and arts education while raising her family. Her work in Australia and the United States has included teaching in private schools, creating teen tutoring programs in inner city schools, and training adult volunteers to tutor high school students. Mrs. Wolfensohn was educated at Wellesley College, where she received her B.A. She went on to receive her M.A. in French Literature from Columbia and her M.Ed in counseling psychology from Teacher's College. Mrs. Wolfensohn's commitment to education also extends into her community advisory work. She sits on several boards, including Young Audiences and American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic, where she is President of the Board of Directors. In addition, she serves on the board of the Graduate School of Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary, as well as the advisory committees of the Park City Mathematics Oversight Board at the Institute of Advanced Study and Teachers College at Columbia University. During her husband's presidency of the World Bank, Mrs. Wolfensohn worked closely with the Bank on issues of education, early child development and gender equity.

Monty Neill, Ed.D., is currently Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). He has led FairTest's work on testing in the public schools since 1987. He has initiated national and state coalitions of education, civil rights, religious and parent organizations to work toward fundamental change in the assessment of students and in accountability. He currently chairs The Forum on Educational Accountability. This alliance is working to develop alternatives for use in overhauling federal education law (the No Child Left Behind Act, in particular) based on the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, signed by more than 80 national groups.

Gene Sperling is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He was President Clinton's National Economic Advisor and Director of the National Economic Council from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy National Economic Advisor from 1993 to 1997. Mr. Sperling recently served as a top economic advisor to the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign. He is a columnist and commentator for *Bloomberg Business News* and a contributing editor for the DLC's *Blueprint Magazine*, serves as director of the Center for Universal Education at the Council of Foreign Relations, and has been a contributing writer and consultant to the television show *The West Wing*. He has appeared on *Meet the Press*, *Face the Nation*, *This Week*, *Good Morning America*, *Nightline*, and CNN's *Late Edition*, and is a frequent contributor to NPR. His articles have appeared in *The Atlantic*, *Foreign Affairs*, *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, *Inc.* magazine, *Financial Times*, *Foreign Policy*, and others.

Vivien Stewart is vice president for education at Asia Society. She is responsible for Asia Society's programs to promote the study of Asia and other world regions, cultures, languages, and global issues in America's schools, and for building connections between U.S. and Asian education leaders. In the United States, Stewart's initiatives include working with a network of state and national education leaders and creating a national initiative to expand the teaching of Chinese. Stewart has developed a series of international exchanges to share expertise between American and Asian education leaders on improving education to meet the demands of globalization. This includes bringing delegations of educators to each others' schools; producing publications such as *Math and Science Education in a Global Age*; and hosting expert meetings such as the Asia-Pacific Education Forum held in Beijing in 2006. Stewart has had a long involvement with education and youth affairs. Over the course of a distinguished career at Carnegie Corporation of New York, she was a leader in shaping reform agendas in early childhood education, urban school reform, science education, teaching as a profession, and healthy adolescent development. In addition to grantmaking, she was responsible for the management of a number of Carnegie task forces, which produced influential reports such as "Turning Points", "A Matter of Time", and "Starting Points". She was also instrumental in the creation of the National Center for Children in Poverty and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Stewart serves as a board member of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the Longview Foundation for Education in International Understanding and World Affairs. She is senior education advisor to the Refugee Education Trust in Geneva and on the advisory board of the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. She has also been senior policy advisor to the UN special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict and a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. She received her B.A. and M. Phil. degrees from Oxford University.

Peter I. Blute is a former American Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He served two terms, between January 3, 1993 and January 3, 1997, representing the Third District of Massachusetts. Blute was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, one of 11 siblings. He grew up and currently lives in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, where he attended St. John's High School. He earned his B.A. at Boston College in 1978. He was the owner of a sports promotion and marketing firm, and then a marketing representative for The Burdett School. Blute was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1986 and served until 1993 when he was elected as a Republican to the 103rd Congress and then reelected to the 104th Congress.

Daniel Albright is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard and the editor of *Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources*. He was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois and completed his undergraduate studies on a full scholarship at Rice. He later received his PhD from Yale. Albright is also the author of the book *Quantum Poetic*s which was published by Cambridge University Press in 1997.

*Body & Soul's* series creator, Gail Harris, has been a print and broadcast journalist for more than 25 years, with extensive experience as a political reporter. Before launching *Body & Soul* in 1998, she co-hosted the 24-part PBS series on campaign finance reform, *Follow the Money*. Her other PBS credits include anchoring and co-producing *Hiroshima Remembered*, which won a national Emmy. A former correspondent for ABC *News Nightline*, she has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She is president and chief executive officer of Beacon Productions, Inc., the Boston-based company that produces *Body & Soul*.