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First elected in 1990 as Michigan’s 46^th governor, Governor John Engler is now America’s most senior governor. Engler was elected chairman of the National Governors Association in August 2001.

A common sense Midwestern conservative who believes strongly that every child should have the chance to succeed, Engler has made improving education Michigan’s number one priority. With boldness and vision for the future, Governor Engler also cut taxes, reformed welfare, right-sized government and implemented the biggest road repair and rebuilding plan in state history. Under his watch, the quality of Michigan’s water, land and air resources has steadily improved.

In 1994, Engler led the fight to enact Proposal A – a ballot proposal overwhelmingly approved by voters to fund schools fairly and cut property taxes. Now, all children have a foundation grant that follows them to the public schools of their choice, including more than 180 charter public schools. With funding issues resolved, high standards and rigorous assessments have helped improve student performance. To encourage academic achievement, Governor Engler created the Michigan Merit Award – a $2,500 scholarship for college or training – that is awarded to high school students who pass their proficiency tests in reading, writing, science and math.

Governor Engler has signed 32 tax cuts into law, saving taxpayers nearly $32 billion. The state inheritance tax and capital gains taxes have been eliminated. Personal exemptions for children, seniors and the disabled have been increased. The personal income tax rate is being reduced to 3.9 percent — the lowest level in a quarter century — and Michigan’s main tax on business is being phased out completely.

Engler’s economic policies have helped to create more than 800,000 jobs in Michigan, cutting the state’s unemployment rate from over 9 percent the year he took office to 3.4 percent in 2000 – the lowest annual level ever recorded. For an unprecedented five years in a row, Michigan has led the nation with the most new factories and expansion projects.. As part of the nation’s most forward-looking economic development strategy, $1 billion is being invested in a “Life Sciences Corridor” from Ann Arbor to Grand Rapids, and a high-tech cybercourt to hear business disputes is also in the works.  In addition, Governor Engler’s NextEnergy initiative is positioning Michigan to be an international cluster of innovation in the development and commercialization of alternative energy technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells.

Governor Engler has strengthened Michigan’s role as guardian of the Great Lakes, fought water diversions and invested more in clean water than any governor. Thanks to reforms of environmental laws, Michigan leads the nation in reclaiming contaminated brownfield sites while preserving green space and farmland.

For over two decades, Caprice has been at the forefront of education reform, inside and outside the system. She served as the reform president of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board during a time of intense struggle over the future of the city’s schools, and, along with Superintendent Roy Romer, was instrumental in making gains across the district in student achievement and launching an ambitious program of school facilities renewal that continues today.

Following her service to Los Angeles, Caprice founded the California Charter Schools Association, uniting three state and regional charter groups, and grew it to become the nation’s most powerful state association, accelerating the growth of charter schools, encouraging and supporting diverse leadership in the movement, and advocating strongly on behalf of charters and choice. Sensing the transformative power of technology in education, Caprice then took on the post of CEO of KC Distance Learning and Vice President of Business Development and Alliances for Knowledge Universe Education (KUE) U.S. More recently, Caprice took on the job of rescuing the financially troubled Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF) and its portfolio of fifteen high-performing LA Charter schools.

Through all of these experiences, Caprice has kept her eye firmly on the goal of transforming public education so that it serves all children well. Caprice was former Vice President for Education at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Mickey Revenaugh is co-founder of Connections Academy (now Connections Education) and Executive Vice President of Connections Learning, the new division created to provide online/blended learning services to districts, schools, and consumers and also the incubator of the new network of Nexus Academy blended charter schools. Mickey has served twice as Chairman of the Board of iNACOL, The International Association for K-12 Online Learning, and is currently Vice Chairman.

Previously, she helped launch the E-rate program to wire American schools to the Internet, and served as education technology editor at Scholastic. Mickey has an MBA from New York University, did her undergraduate work at Yale University, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Dawn Chavous is currently Executive Director of Students First PA, a nonprofit organization created to advocate for education reform policies to ensure all children have access to high-quality educational options.

Previously, she served as Chief of Staff and Director of Education for Pennsylvania state Senator Anthony H. Williams. In 2010, she managed Williams’s gubernatorial campaign. Chavous graduated from Ursinus College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology; she earned a master’s degree in organizational dynamics, specializing in leadership management and organizational development, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Patrick J. Wolf is Professor and 21^st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions.  Previously he taught at Georgetown and Columbia University.  As principal investigator of the School Choice Demonstration Project, he is leading the impact evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program through a contract with the U.S. Department of Education (subcontract with Westat) and is overseeing a national research team conducting an independent longitudinal multi-method evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. 

Dr. Wolf has authored, co-authored, or co-edited three books, 28 policy reports, and 34 articles and book chapters on school choice, civic values, special education, public management, and campaign finance.  His 1997 article on Reinventing Government won the national “Best Article Award” of the Academy of Management, Division on Public and Nonprofit Management.  A 1987 graduate of the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN), he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University in 1995.

Jonas is widely known as a leader in the nation’s school reform movement. He comes to Leading Educators from the Charter Schools Institute of the State University of New York where he served as Executive Director of the nation’s largest university based charter school authorizer.

Previously, he served as the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the Charter School Policy Institute (CSPI) in Austin, Texas and as Executive Director of Teach For America in Houston, Texas. Jonas began his career as a teacher with Teach For America in the Compton Unified School District. He holds degrees from Cornell University, Chapman University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joe Williams has built a reputation as one of the most effective strategists and coalition-builders in the education reform community. He is a nationally recognized analyst and public speaker on education policy and politics, reaching thousands of listeners in audiences from coast to coast each year.

Joe is also one of the most prolific writers and commentators in the education reform world, often tapping into his experience as a newspaper reporter and author to make the case for reform. He previously worked as an award-winning education journalist for the New York Daily News and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He has written extensively on education politics nationally and has served as a non-resident senior fellow for the Washington-based think-tank Education Sector. He is author of the book Cheating our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.)

Joe lives in New York City where his children attend the city’s public schools.

Dr. Caroline M Hoxby is the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Hoxby is also the Director of the Economics of Education Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. A public and labor economist, she is one of the world’s leading scholars of the economics of education. 

Hoxby is well known for her research on school choice, school finance, the market for college education, peer effects, university finance and financial aid. Her current projects include work on how how education affects economic growth; globalization in higher education; and ideal financing for schools. Hoxby is the recipient of many honors including Global Leader of Tomorrow (World Economic Forum) and Sloan, Olin, Mellon, and Ford fellowships. Hoxby has served as a presidential appointee to the National Board of Education Sciences. She has a Ph.D. from MIT, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and obtained her BA from Harvard University.

Bob Bowdon has been a television producer, reporter and commentator for the past fifteen years. His varied career has seen him conducting in-depth on-camera interviews, anchoring newscasts and producing nationally-syndicated TV shows. He’s even appeared in satirical news sketches for the Onion News Network.

The Cartel, Bowdon’s award-winning documentary, reveals the nature and extent of corruption in public education. Behind every dropout factory, we discover, lurks a powerful, entrenched and self-serving cartel. And the film puts a human face on those who suffer as a result.

Ultimately, The Cartel is a call to action, not despair. The film profiles heroic administrators, teachers and students who defy the odds—particularly in schools of choice. The Cartel powerfully concludes that we must insist on immediate and systemic reform that puts students first. And we must do it now. That same conviction animates the work of Choice Media.