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Education Reformers Make the Grade in TIME's Annual List of Influential People

Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada make this year's list of movers and shakers.

TIME's annual list of the most influential people in the world, the "TIME 100" is out, and two of the most famous education reformers in the nation—former Washington D.C. schools chancellor and founder of the advocacy group StudentsFirst, Michelle Rhee, and her "Waiting for 'Superman'" co-star, Harlem Children's Zone founder, Geoffrey Canada—made the cut.

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Your Favorite Public Education Reformer Probably Went to Private School

Many of today's prominent education reformers attended private school. Their policies for public schools are a far cry from that experience.

What do some of the nation's most prominent public education reform advocates—Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, President Obama, and Davis Guggenheim—all have in common? They received their K-12 education at private schools. "In Public School Efforts, a Common Background: Private Education" from this Sunday's New York Times spotlights this phenomenon and raises important questions about the discrepancy between the well rounded education these reformers received at elite private schools like Exeter and Sidwell Friends, and what they recommend for other people's children.

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Waiting for Superman Can Stop Waiting for Oscar

The Academy Awards dissed the biggest education documentary of 2010. What gives?


Nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced yesterday, and in the documentary category Exit through the Gift Shop, Gasland, Inside Job, Restrepo and Waste Land were all given nods. The documentary you probably heard about most last year—and probably actually saw—was not. Oscar dissed Waiting for 'Superman.'

When Superman made its debut, pundits claimed an Oscar would sit next to the golden statue director Davis Guggenheim garnered for An Inconvenient Truth. Despite the cast appearing on Oprah and generous support from Bill Gates, that's not happening and a few interesting theories are floating around about why.

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Q&A: Diane Ravitch Skewers Every Education Reform Sacred Cow

In part two of a two-part conversation, Diane Ravitch upends many commonly held assumptions about education reform.

Education expert, author, and New York University professor Diane Ravitch believes that students are more than just their test scores. Her bestselling book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, positions Ravitch as one of the most outspoken critics of the recent wave of education reformers. Her current viewpoints are a sharp departure from the beliefs she held in the 1990s when she served as Assistant Secretary of Education under both President George H. W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. Ravitch shared with us her recipe for improving academic achievement in our nation's schools.

Please note: This is part two in a two-part series. Read the first installment here.

GOOD: What do you say to reformers who say that poverty doesn't matter and teachers should be able to get the same results regardless of a child's income?

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