Obama taps Stanford professors, Google exec to lead policy advisory teams

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Mercury News

Barack Obama's transition team on Wednesday named two Stanford professors and a Google executive to lead three of his policy advisory committees, charged with identifying priorities and proposals for the new administration to pursue.

Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond will lead the education committee. A veteran of the nation's school reform debate, she served as a key member of the campaign's education policy team, focusing on teacher quality and education equity issues. She is a leading critic of the Bush administration's much-debated No Child Left Behind law, and she is considered a possible pick for secretary of education.

Stanford law professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar will head up the immigration committee. Cuéllar was an adviser to the Clinton administration's Treasury Department and also advised the Obama campaign on a variety of issues, including immigration, criminal justice and Latino voter outreach.

Sonal Shah, head of Google.org's global development efforts, is one of three leaders of the technology, innovation and government reform policy working group. She also serves on the Obama-Biden transition advisory board. The other two technology team leaders are Blair Levin, a telecom and technology strategy analyst who served as chief of staff to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt under the Clinton administration, and Julius Genachowski, a technology



Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11025362

[Eric J in MN]

1. They shoud repeal "No Child Left Behind."

Don't just reform it. Get rid of it.

[merwin]

2. There are parts of it that are very good.

Reading First, for example, which my mother is a regional coordinator for. Teaching teachers how to teach phonics does wonders for the reading skills of 5 and 6 year olds. The poor neighborhoods in Seattle are a good example of how the reading level of the children is increasing dramatically.

[sandnsea]

3. My daughter learned with "phonograms"

and the Superkids program. If I could wave a magic wand, it would be that these two programs were in every first grade classroom in the country. Followed by a strong literature based program for second grade, lyrically written stories that really spark the imagination. Whole language has its place, but there really is a method to the way words are put together and pronounced.

[donco6]

4. Linda Darling-Hammond is great.

I've been to workshops with her at Stanford. She's very bright, has written several good books, and is very personable. Her main push is improving instruction, not destroying public schools and replacing them with charters (ala NCLB).

[nyy1998]

5. I've actually gone to a workshop with Sonal Shah

in Boston. She's very nice and very intelligent.