Contributor
Jeanne Allen, President, The Center for Education Reform
Related Link:
http://www.edreform.com
Biography provided by participant
Jeanne Allen is the President of the Center for Education Reform (CER), a Washington, D.C. based organization driving the creation of better educational opportunities for all children by leading parents, policymakers and the media in boldly advocating for school choice, advancing the charter school movement, and challenging the education establishment.
Co-author of "The School Reform Handbook: How to Improve Your Schools" (1995), Allen is recognized as one of the country's leading education experts. She appears frequently on national television and radio programs, and can often be found in the pages of the nation's most influential newspapers and magazines.
Allen's deep knowledge of the legislative process, her reputation as an influencer on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and in statehouses around the country, as well as her immensely successful grassroots work in local communities, keep her in demand as a keynote speaker and presenter before groups throughout the United States.
An advisor, both formally and informally, to a number of education reform groups, grassroots organizations, foundation executives and legislative leaders, she has also served as a participant in several exclusive presidential and administration roundtables.
Allen is the mother of four school-age children, Johnny, Teddy, Anthony, and Mary Monica and is married to Dr. Kevin L. Strother.
Recent Responses
October 16, 2009 09:50 AM
In the wake of flat NAEP test scores (which correlates to flat achievement, safe for some pockets of the country and some groups of kids), it’s a good exercise to ask just what is intended to be accomplished with our latest entry to the alphabet soup of education - i3. There seems to a lot of disagreement about whether or not AYP should be used as one criterion as districts apply. Tom Vander Ark says scrap them for this purpose, as does Diane Ravitch. But as Nelson Smith suggests, charters may be ill-affected in their pursuit because of the variety…
Read moreSeptember 2, 2009 10:47 PM
Hmmm, let me see. How long have we been talking about turning around failing schools? Weren’t we talking about it last year? How about the year before that? The last ten years? Try since 1983. We really only got rid of a few bad apples with NCLB, though others are on the hot seat now thanks to the spotlight, and, occasionally, reform-minded education leaders. But state-by-state, bureaucracies and impediments remain. States and districts were able to dodge state requirements for years and later, the same was true of federal requirements. The impact of high standards has been minimized by lower…
Read moreAugust 27, 2009 11:16 AM
For me the two questions on the table this week actually converge. Preparing students for college is an issue to which Senator Kennedy devoted much of his life. Like some of my colleagues, I admired him because he was unflinching in his resolve and commitment to get accomplished what he believed needed to be done, and he did not back off – ever – from trying to solve this country’s education crisis. Even though many of his approaches to doing so were not and are not mine, he was an example for all of us. Kennedy’s statesmanship didn’t cause…
Read moreAugust 7, 2009 05:37 PM
It’s clear, as some have said, that all this federal lawmaking is, without more specific requirements, likely to yield little fruit in the end. Regardless of who is president and which party runs Congress, it is like making sausage. No matter what the ingredients are or the flavor you are looking to create, in the end, it gets jumbled up and tastes pretty much the same (along with some pretty pernicious things thrown in along the way). Teacher evaluations, however, are not ever limited to a one moment-in-time test score, as Monte Neil opines. We all know it is much…
Read moreJuly 21, 2009 08:20 PM
I’m with Rachel Tompkins and Mike Antonucci. Truly independent auditors exist, and they are called parents, and press. Given a chance to make any decisions about their child’s school, the availability of un-touched data, and a glimpse at the options, parents vote with their feet. The press help feed that information, as well as demand answers, and thanks to the Internet the media is a much bigger, better watchdog than ever. It’s amazing that anyone well-schooled in education politics would support the “independent auditor” idea, knowing that any shred of independence in this business is compromised by whoever holds the…
Read moreJuly 6, 2009 03:38 PM
Just about every city dweller I know – including those who know a lot – think their Mayor is in control of every city service. Do an informal survey of your non-education policy focused friends and you’ll find that they believe – overwhelmingly – that their Mayor’s portfolio extends to schools. Sure, they know a school board exists, but they are not quite sure whether their purview is simply the vetting of school policies, hiring, budgets or what-have-you. The confusion is even more pronounced when you start talking about how schools get financed. Turn to the subject of accountability, and…
Read moreJuly 2, 2009 04:41 PM
The president's most important job in education is the bully pulpit, followed closely by the creative and firm use of incentives to put talk into action. The federal government should also tend to people most in need, and when it comes to education, that means poor kids, school districts with a history of bad policy or inequities, and any special needs. While the stimulus bill was intended to stem a flood of layoffs and money woes, with the exception of the $5 billion of discretionary "play money," it didn't really address the three fundamental ways the feds can and should…
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