Kay Merseth
Kay Merseth is a Senior Lecturer and the Director of Teacher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to her Education degrees from Harvard, Kay holds a B.A. and an M.A. in mathematics. She began her education career as a high school teacher.

Andrew Rotherham
Andrew Rotherham is one of the nation's leading education policy analysts and is also a member of the Virginia State Board of Education, author of the blog Eduwonk.com, and a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. In 1998, Rotherham launched the 21st Century Schools Project at the
Progressive Policy Institute, which he directed until 2005.

Jim Windham
Jim Windham is an investment consultant and the editor and publisher of a monthly publication of commentary on public policy and current events in Texas. Windham currently serves as President of the Texas Institute for Education Reform. He is also a fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Marina Walne
Marina Walne coordinates P-16 programs throughout the University of Texas System. Walne was president of EduStart, an education consulting firm specializing in school start-ups. She is a member of the coordinating committee of the Texas Business and Education Coalition and was the founding Director of the John Cooper School in Houston.

Caprice Young
Caprice Young leads California’s charter school membership and support association. She served as a member and President of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education from 1999-2003. Young is a former Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for the Anderson School at UCLA; Manager of IBM's West Coast e-Business Innovations Design Center; and Assistant Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles.

Dr. Donald R. McAdams
Don McAdams is the President and founder of the Center for Reform of School Systems. From 1990 to 2002, Mr. McAdams served as a member of the Houston Independent School District Board of Education, included two terms as board president. In 2002, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige appointed McAdams to the National Advisory Council on Institutional Quality and Integrity. McAdams has been a research professor at the University of Houston; executive vice president at the American Productivity & Quality Center; and president of the Texas Independent College Fund.

Dr. Eric Hanushek
Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He is also chairman of the Executive Committee for the Texas Schools Project at the University of Texas at Dallas, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. He is a leading expert on educational policy, specializing in the economics and finance of schools. His on-going research spans a number of the most important and controversial areas of education policy including the impacts of high stakes accountability and of class size reduction and the importance of teacher quality. These analyses, combined with his work on efficiency and resource usage, relate directly to current debates about school finance policy and the concepts of adequacy and equity as they have been applied in litigation. Analyses of growth and the economic impact of school outcomes provide an economic rationale for improving school quality and for promoting more efficient use of school resources.

Dr. Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Dr. Chester E. Finn, Jr., is President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Senior Editor of Education Next. Finn is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Education and Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he worked from 1995 through 1998. He served as founding partner and senior scholar with the Edison Project. He was Professor of Education and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University from 1981 until 2002. From 1985 to 1988, he served as Assistant Secretary for Research and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education.