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Martha J. Kanter currently serves as Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, one of the largest community college districts in the country, serving more than 44,000 students. Prior to her tenure at De Anza College, Kanter served as Vice President of Instruction and Student Services at San Jose City College where she formerly worked as a teacher and created the school's first program for students with learning disabilities. Kanter also served as a Director, Dean and subsequently Vice Chancellor for Policy and Research of the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office in Sacramento. Kanter earned her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University, a master's in education from Harvard University and a doctorate in organization and leadership from the University of San Francisco. Kanter has taught across the country and currently serves as National Chair of the Community College Advisory Panel of The College Board.

Steve is the President and CEO of ML Strategies, where he manages a team of consultants in Boston and Washington D.C. and advises a range of clients from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurs on a wide range of issues. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts. Steve was Chairman of the Board of Higher Education in Massachusetts from 1999 to 2006. From 1993 to 1997, Steve served as Executive Director and CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority. Prior to that, he was Massachusetts Secretary of Economic Affairs and also served as Special Assistant to both Governor William Weld and Governor Paul Cellucci. As one of Governor Weld's and Governor Cellucci's most trusted advisors, he earned a reputation as an aggressive problem-solver and strategist. During his years of service to the Commonwealth, he was involved in a host of major growth initiatives, including the new Fleet Center, the state track facility and many bio-chemical development projects. Prior to entering state government, Steve founded his own public-sector consulting firm, and served as president of The Strategy Group, the management consulting arm of a public accounting firm. Steve earned a B.S. degree in pharmacy and chemistry from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. He was awarded a CSS for graduate work in administration and management from Harvard University (1989). Steve also received an honorary Ph.D. in humane letters from Nichols College (2001).

Jonathan Raymond is the Chief Accountability Officer in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, NC, a district with more than 126,000 students in 150 schools. Previously, he served as president and CEO of the Boston based Commonwealth Corporation, a non profit organization with a mission of building stronger communities through innovative education and workforce development programs.

Linda Nathan is the founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, the city's first and only public high school for the visual and performing arts. BAA sends over 95 percent of its graduates to college all residents of the city of Boston. Under her leadership, the school has won state, national, and international recognition and awards. These include a Massachusetts Compass Award, a Breaking Ranks award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and a Mentor School award from the Coalition of Essential Schools. Linda was instrumental in starting Boston's first performing-arts middle school, and was a driving force behind the creation of Fenway High School, recognized nationally for its innovative educational strategies and school-to-work programs. She is also a co-founder and board member of the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, a nonprofit education reform organization dedicated to creating more equitable and democratic schools. She has served on the National Academy of Science's Commission for the Science of Learning. She was named Teacher of the Year by Chronicle on Channel 5, ABC's affiliate in Boston. In 2003, Linda received the Nadia Boulanger Educator's Award from the Longy School of Music for her work in arts education. In 2006 she received the first Fidelity Inspire the Future Award given to community leaders who excel in encouraging the next generation of artists and arts advocates. She was named a 2007 Barr Foundation Fellow, and spent June 2007 in South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of this fellowship. Linda received the Massachusetts College of Art and Design's Morton R. Godine Medal for Service to the Community at the college's commencement ceremony in May 2009. Linda's articles have appeared in Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, Horace, and other publications. Fluent in Spanish, she has worked on issues of school reform in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. In 2006, she presented to the first UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education in Lisbon, Portugal. Linda is a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches the course, Building Democratic Schools. She has written a book about teaching and leadership in urban schools, The Hardest Questions Aren't On the Test, that will be published by Beacon Press in September 2009. Linda earned a bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley; a master's degree in education administration at Antioch University; a master's of performing arts at Emerson College, and a doctorate in education at Harvard University. She is married to Steve Cohen, a professor at Tufts University and they have three children ages 22, 19, and 15.

New York Times reporter Chris Hedges is author and 20-year war correspondent who shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of global terrorism. In his 20 years as a journalist for many of the most respected news organizations in the United States, Hedges has reported from the world's most war-ravaged regions, from the Middle East and Central America to the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. For more than a decade, Hedges covered hot spots for *The New York Times*, first in 1991 in Operation Desert Storm, then in Bosnia and Kosovo from 1995-98, and more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, he was part of a team of *Times* reporters that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for the paper's 2001 coverage of terrorism. The winner of numerous other awards for his coverage, he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.

Nancy Faust Sizer is a career teacher who has worked in public and private high schools, including Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Phillips Academy, and the Wheeler School. With her husband, Theodore R. Sizer, she has taught at Brown University and currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Both Nancy and Ted recently served as Acting Co-Principals at the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School where Nancy also was Transition Counselor, helping to lead its first graduating class through the transition to postsecondary education. *The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract* (Beacon Press, 1999) is her most recent book, written with her husband Ted.

Professor Orfield received his B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota and his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Chicago. He is primarily interested in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. He was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project and is now co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. Orfield's central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. Orfield received the 2007 "Social Justice in Education" Award by the American Educational Research Association for "work that has had a profound impact on demonstrating the critical role of education research in supporting social justice." He is a member of the National Academy of Education. Professor Orfield, together with Professor Patricia Gondara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, received two new research grants since June 2007. The first initiative, funded by the Eleanor Foundation of Chicago, is entitled, "The Future Rests on Working Moms: Unequal Opportunity and Policies to Help Them Realize Their Dreams for Their Children." The second study, funded by the Ford Foundation, is called "Breaking the Chain of Failure: Moving from Weak High Schools to Strong Community Colleges for Students of Color."

Giovanna Negretti is the founding Executive Director of Oeste? (Translation: Have You Heard?), the first and only statewide Latino political organization in Massachusetts. Oeste? is a membership organization with a mission to promote the principles and practice of democracy and to advance the political, social and economic standing of Latinos and Latinas in the state. Oeste? offers programs in leadership development, civic education, campaign training and advocacy. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Giovanna arrived to Massachusetts in 1992. She began her local political work serving as a legislative aide to State Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Senior Advisor to the Joint Committee on Insurance. Simultaneously, she served as President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, an organization which advocates for civil rights of Puerto Ricans in the United States while promoting independence for Puerto Rico. On a national level, Giovanna is part of the Executive Committees of the National Boricua Human Rights Network, Boricua Initiative, Santiago's List and the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. She has coordinated rallies and demonstrations in Washington DC, including March for Amnesty for the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners (1997); A Un Siglo de Invasion, Marcha Nuestra Nacion (1998); and the National Day of Solidarity With the People of Vieques (2000) and the March for Legalization of Immigrants (2002). Giovanna has also coordinated several humanitarian delegations to Central America and South America and the Caribbean. Giovanna was listed by Boston Magazine as one of 40 Bostonians to Watch (June 2002) and as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Boston (May 2003). She graduated from Emerson College with a BFA, magna cum laude, is a fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and has a MPA with a concentration in Leadership from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.