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2015 Policy Training Conference
Promoting Opportunity and Excellence
The Liaison Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015 – Friday, February 6, 2015
Todd Mann, Executive Director, Magnet Schools of America (DC)
As Executive Director, Todd Mann is in charge of elevating awareness of the importance and value of magnet education. Mann’s immediate background has been STEM focused. He has served as the Executive Director of the National Consortium of Secondary STEM Schools, an association representing the leading high schools in the country that specialize in STEM approaches and outcomes, since Fall 2013.
His career spans both association management and work in the private sector. Previously, he served in a leadership role at the National Restaurant Association. He later led a large trade association in the construction industry. Mann’s business background was as an entrepreneur, having started up three companies. He was one of six people to create the concept of placing full-‐service bank branches in supermarkets. Subsequently, he pioneered an educational TV channel over the Internet, made possible by patenting technology from a company he took public. Mann spent the first few years of his career on Capitol Hill. Mann was among the first men to attend Vassar College, where he graduated cum laude and later served as a Trustee. He completed a financial executive education at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. A resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, he served as an elected official on its Village Council. He is married to Susan Stockdale, a children’s book author and illustrator, and they have two grown children.
Doreen Marvin, President, Magnet Schools of America (CT)
Ms. Marvin is the Director of Development at LEARN in Old Lyme,
Connecticut. LEARN is the local regional educational service center (RESC) for southeastern CT that provides a wide range of training and education services to individuals and organizations. She has extensive experience working with communities locally, statewide, and nationally. Ms. Marvin is trained in strategic planning, creative planning, and systems approaches to
organizational development. Within her work at LEARN, she has coordinated the development and start-‐up of five magnet schools, authored and co-‐ authored successful grant requests, and facilitated and co-‐facilitated a systems design process for community based agencies, school districts, and educational service agencies.
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Donna Brazile, Political Analyst, CNN and Contributor, ABC News (DC)
Veteran Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile is an adjunct
professor, author, syndicated columnist, television political commentator, vice chair of Voter Registration and Participation at the Democratic National Committee and former interim National Chair of the Democratic National Committee as well as the former chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute.
Aside from working for the full recovery of her beloved New Orleans, Brazile’s passion is encouraging young people to vote, to work within the system to strengthen it, and to run for public office. Since 2000, Brazile has lectured at over 125 colleges and universities across the country on such topics as “Inspiring Civility in American Politics,” Race Relations in the Age of Obama, Why Diversity Matters, Women in American Politics: Are We There Yet.
She first got involved at the age of nine when she worked to elect a City Council candidate who had promised to build a playground in her neighborhood; the candidate won, the swing set was
installed, and a lifelong passion for political progress was ignited. Brazile worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she became the first African-‐American to manage a presidential campaign.
Author of the best-‐selling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics, Brazile is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a syndicated newspaper columnist for Universal Uclick, a columnist for Ms. magazine, and O, The Oprah Magazine, an on-‐air contributor to CNN, and ABC, where she regularly appears on ABC’s This Week. Her passion is acting; she has made two cameo appearances on CBS’s The Good Wife. Most recently, Brazile has appeared on Netflix’s new series House of Cards. Ask her and she’ll tell you that acting, after all, is the key to success in politics. In August 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine chose Brazile as one of its 20 “remarkable visionaries” for the magazine’s first-‐ ever O Power List. In addition, she was named among the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian magazine, Top 50 Women in America by Essence magazine, and received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement.
She is currently on the board of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the National Institute for Civil Discourse, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund, Inc.
Last, but never least, she is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. In the aftermath of the two catastrophic hurricanes that made landfall in the Gulf region, Brazile was appointed by former Governor Kathleen Blanco to serve on the Louisiana Recovery Board to work for the rebuilding of the state and to advocate for the Gulf recovery on the national stage.
Brazile is the proud recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Louisiana State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Grambling College, Northeastern Illinois University and Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black, Catholic institution of higher education in the United States.
Brazile is founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates LLC, a general consulting, grassroots advocacy, and training firm based in Washington, DC.
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Cynthia G. Brown is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, (CAP). She was previously the Vice President for Education Policy at CAP and formerly served as director of the “Renewing Our Schools, Securing Our Future National Task Force on Public Education,” a joint initiative of the Center for American Progress and the Institute for America’s Future. Brown has spent more than 35 years working in a variety of professional positions addressing high-‐quality, equitable public education.
Prior to joining CAP, she was an independent education consultant who advised and wrote for local and state school systems, education associations, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and a corporation. From 1986 through September 2001, Brown served as director of the Resource Center on Educational Equity of the Council of Chief State School Officers. In 1980, she was appointed by President Carter as the first assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to that position, she served as principal deputy of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s Office for Civil Rights. Subsequent to this government service, she was co-‐director of the nonprofit Equality Center. Before the Carter administration, she worked for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Children’s Defense Fund, and began her career in the HEW Office for Civil Rights as an investigator.
Caitlin Emma, Education Reporter, Politico (DC)
Caitlin Emma is an education reporter for Politico. Prior to reporting, she was a senior Web producer for Politico Pro. Caitlin graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2011 and spent a year in a journalism fellowship covering everything in the Nutmeg State – from policy and politics, to police, courts, community book clubs and restaurant health inspections. She also donated her bone marrow in 2010 and has
spearheaded a number of bone marrow donor drives. Caitlin is a native of Leominster, MA.
Dr. Anna Hinton, Director, Parental Options and Information, Office of Innovation
and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (DC)
Dr. Anna Hinton oversees numerous programs that support alternatives in education including the Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) program, the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, the Full-‐service
Community Schools program, and the Public School Choice program. Prior to coming to OII, Anna served for seven years as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Student Achievement and School Accountability Program at the U.S. Department of Education, where she was responsible for overseeing the day-‐to-‐day program operations for the Title I, Part A program. In this capacity, she also developed non-‐regulatory guidance and other resources on the Title I, Part A parental involvement and choice provisions. Prior to
coming to the U.S. Department of Education, Anna spent over five years working at the National Institute of Justice where she was responsible for managing multi-‐year program evaluations of national family violence prevention programs. Dr. Hinton holds a bachelor's degree in speech communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in criminal justice from North Carolina Central University, and a doctorate in sociology with a concentration in race, gender, and social justice from American University.
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Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation (DC)
Richard D. Kahlenberg has been called “the intellectual father of the economic integration movement” in K-‐12 schooling, and “arguably the nation's chief proponent of class-‐based affirmative action in higher education admissions.” He is also an authority on teachers’ unions, private school vouchers, charter schools, turnaround school efforts, labor organizing and inequality in higher education.
He is the author of six books and his articles have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street
Journal, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, C-‐SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Previously, Kahlenberg was a Fellow at the Center for National Policy, a visiting associate professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, and a legislative assistant to Senator Charles S. Robb (D-‐VA). He also serves on the advisory board of the Pell Institute, the Albert Shanker
Institute and the Research Advisory Panel of the National Coalition for School Diversity. In addition, he is the winner of the William A. Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy Scholarship. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. Between college and law school, he spent a year at the University of Nairobi School of Journalism as a Rotary Scholar.
John Laughner, Legislative and Communications Manager,
Magnet Schools of America (DC)
John Laughner joined Magnet Schools of America (MSA) in 2010. He is responsible for building support for magnet schools by developing working relationships with Members of Congress and their staff, White House officials, representatives from the U.S. Department of Education, and other national education groups. Prior to joining MSA, John was the Legislative Director for the Committee for Education Funding, the nation’s largest and oldest education coalition. In this role, he led the education community’s advocacy efforts to increase federal funding for public schools.
Mr. Laughner has experience working in the private sector. He worked for the lobbying firm, FBA, Inc., where he identified federal grant opportunities for universities and colleges, and assisted with congressional appropriations. He was a Legislative Coordinator at Stateside Associates, where he tracked and analyzed state legislation on behalf of multiple Fortune 500 companies. John also spent two years at the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Office of the Ombudsman, where he helped resolve student financial aid disputes. He began his career in Washington, DC by working for several members of Congress. Mr. Laughner earned his Bachelor’s degree in American Politics and Policy from the University of Central Florida, and his Master’s degree in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.
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Joel Packer, Executive Director, Committee for Education Funding (DC)
Joel Packer is the former director of educational policy and practice at the National Education Association (NEA). He was responsible for key issues, including school readiness, standards, testing and accountability, teaching and learning conditions, educator quality, parent involvement, funding, special education, high school reform, 21st century skills/STEM issues, English Language Learners, voucher programs and charter schools. Joel also led NEA’s policy and advocacy work on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and was the organization’s lead liaison with the U.S. Department of Education. He previously was a NEA lobbyist, covering issues including higher education, family and medical leave, the Brady bill, school prayer, civil rights, judicial nominations, health care and environmental hazards in schools.
He has testified numerous times before congressional committees and spoken before a broad range of organizations. Joel is quoted in the media regularly, and he has appeared on many radio talk shows. In 1993 Joel served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs in the U.S. Department of Labor. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Michael Petrilli, President, Thomas Fordham Institute (DC)
Mike Petrilli is an award-‐winning writer and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the country's most influential education-‐policy think tanks. He is the author of The Diverse Schools Dilemma: A Parent's Guide to Socioeconomically Mixed Public Schools, and co-‐editor of
Knowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch, Core Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core.
Petrilli is also a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and executive editor of Education Next. Petrilli has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg View, Slate, and Wall Street Journal and has been a guest on NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, and Fox, as well as several National Public Radio programs, including All Things Considered, On Point, and the Diane Rehm Show.
Petrilli helped to create the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Policy Innovators in Education Network, and Young Education Professionals. He lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland.
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Maree Sneed, Partner, Hogan Lovells
Maree Sneed's practice involves advising school districts, educational associations, and private companies in the education sector on a wide range of state and federal legal issues, including those involving the U.S. Constitution, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX, FERPA, and the Magnet Schools Assistance Program. Maree has been involved in litigating on behalf of school districts in both state and federal courts, including two Supreme Court cases, Schaffer v. Weast and PICS v. Seattle School District No. 1. She also has counseled school districts on interpretation of Title I requirements, investigations by the Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Justice, development
of policies and plans for English Language Learner students, racial and sexual harassment and cyberbullying. She has assisted school districts in developing court-‐ordered and voluntary student assignment plans, and magnet plans and policies, including those that comply with the
requirements of the federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program. In addition, she has provided regulatory advice to companies in the education sector.
Maree is on the Board of Directors for the Magnet Schools of America. For more than a decade, she was on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She served as a board member and secretary of the National School Boards Foundation and as a Board member of the Council of School Attorneys. Before attending law school, she taught at the high school level. She was also a secondary school principal, assistant principal, and supervisor of gifted and alternative programs in the
Montgomery County Public Schools.
Ramin Taheri, Senior Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, (DC)
Ramin Taheri is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy
Development (OPEPD) at the U.S. Department of Education. In this role, Taheri coordinates
the Department’s policy efforts on a range of K-‐12 issues, including special education, civil
rights, charters schools, and magnet schools. Prior to joining OPEPD, Taheri served as a
Senior Attorney in the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, where he counseled senior
leadership and enforcement staff and worked on policy development, with a particular
focus on disability rights. He received a J.D. from Boston University, an M.A. from Teachers
College, Columbia University, and a B.A. from the University of Maryland.
