Ideas for Tomorrow

Kevin Johnson

Mayor │City of Sacramento

Elected in November 2008, Kevin Johnson is the 55th mayor of Sacramento and the first African American to serve in this office. Mayor Johnson’s vision is for Sacramento to become “a city that works for everyone.”

As mayor, Johnson has made education a top priority and is a tireless advocate for Sacramento children. He strongly believes that in order to be a great city, you have to have great schools and is committed to identifying ways to strategically drive education reform. During the first two years of his administration, Johnson has accomplished a number of objectives in his ambitious plan to ensure that all Sacramento students have the opportunity to attend excellent public schools and is being referred to nationally as the education mayor. Key actions to date include:

• Serving as chair for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Mayors Advisory Council.
• Leading a newly formed U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Public Education.
• Hosting four major education summits that brought nationally renowned education innovators to Sacramento including: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mayor Cory Booker, New York Chancellor Joel Klein, former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and Howard Fuller.
• Playing a key role in passing California Race to the Top legislation.
• Establishing regular dialogue with area superintendents, including an annual luncheon, to align services and discuss collaboration.
• Forming STAND UP for Sacramento Schools, a 501c3 organization focused on accountability for results, excellent teachers and school leaders, an engaged community, educational options, and effective policy.

Johnson’s dedication to education began long before he started his tenure as mayor. Upon retiring from the NBA after 12 seasons with the Phoenix Suns in 2000, he returned to his Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento to serve as the CEO of St. HOPE, a non-profit community development organization he founded in 1989 to revitalize inner-city communities through public education, economic development, civic leadership and the arts. To address a shortage in quality schools in Oak Park, he founded St. HOPE Public Schools, preK – 12 charter school system. PS7 (grades K-8) has demonstrated a reverse achievement gap—where socioeconomically disadvantaged black students outperform their more affluent white peers and is considered one of the top schools in the state with an Academic Performance Index (API) score of 913. In 2009, PS7 was recognized as a California Distinguished School. Sacramento High School, one of the first successful transformation schools in the country, has seen a significant improvement in academic achievement since re-opening as a charter school in 2003 with a 196 point increase in API and a four-year college acceptance rate of over 70%, up from 20%. The school earned a Pillar of Promise Award for Excellence in the Commitment of Providing Effective Education from the America’s Promise Alliance in October 2010.

Mayor Johnson is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., Political Science). He served on the Board of Directors for LISC National, the CA Charter School Association, the UC Berkeley Foundation, the Institute of Governmental Studies National Advisory Council and the Harvard Divinity School SLI Advisory Board. His concern and compassion for children and education prompted President George Bush to honor Johnson with the 411th Point of Light. In addition, Johnson was selected as one of the “15 Greatest Men on Earth” by McCall’s Magazine and has received the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, the Good Morning America Award from Sports Illustrated, the “Most Caring American” award by the Caring Institute, and induction into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame in Boise, Idaho, and the Pac-10 Hall of Fame.

Michelle Rhee

CEO and Founder, StudentsFirst

Michelle began her career as a Teach for America corps member in Baltimore. Through her own trial and error in the classroom, she gained a tremendous respect for the hard work that teachers do every day. In 1997, Michelle founded and led The New Teacher Project, which recruits and trains teachers to work in urban schools. More recently, from 2007 to 2010, Michelle served as chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools. Under her stewardship, D.C. schools experienced increases in student achievement, a rise in graduation rates and an upswing — for the first time in decades — in enrollment.

"Working in education over the past twenty years, time after time I saw obstacles keeping kids from getting what they needed from their schools. Yes, there were challenges that were going to be difficult to overcome no matter what, but so many practices just didn't make sense and were completely within our power to change. When I tried to change them, I found out why the status quo had persisted for so long.

"Groups that put the interests of adults in the system first were driving the conversation, and they were backed by big dollars and political power. What we needed was a collective voice solely representing kids' best interests, because the sense of balance was completely gone. I started StudentsFirst to change that. Schools exist to give kids the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed, and EVERY decision has to revolve around that."

Former commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

A transformational leader with a remarkable record of achievement, General Stanley A. McChrystal was called “one of America’s greatest warriors” by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. A retired four-star general, he is the former commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing the current counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a comprehensive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.

The son of Major General McChrystal, GEN McChrystal graduated from West Point in 1976 and joined the infantry. He began his military career as a platoon commander in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Over the course of his career, he held several leadership and staff positions in the Army Special Forces, Army Rangers, 82nd Airborne Division and the XVIII Army Airborne Corp and the Joint Staff. He is a graduate of the US Naval War College and he completed fellowships at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997 and at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2000.

After 9/11 until his retirement in 2010, General McChrystal spent more than 7 years deployed to combat in a variety of leadership positions. In 2002, he was the chief of staff for military operations in Afghanistan. A year later he was selected to deliver nationally televised Pentagon briefings about military operations in Iraq. From 2003 to 2008, McChrystal commanded JSOC where he led the US Military’s counter-terrorism efforts all over the world. From the summer of 2008 until June of 2009, General McChrystal was the Director of the Joint Staff. In June of 2009, the President of the United States and the Secretary General of NATO appointed General McChrystal to be the Commander of US Forces Afghanistan and NATO ISAF. His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. On August 1 of 2010 General McChrystal retired from the US Army.

General McChrystal is currently the Co-Founder of the McChrystal Group and a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs where he teaches a course on Leadership in Operation.

General McChrystal sits on the board of the Yellow Ribbon Fund, Navistar International Corporation and JetBlue. He is also heading the White House Initiative Joining Forces dedicated to encouraging companies, schools, philanthropic and religious groups and local communities to recognize the stress that is endured by families of active-duty personnel, reservists and veterans, and to strive to meet their needs.

General McChrystal resides in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife of 35 years, Annie.

The Honorable Ben S. Bernanke Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Ben S. Bernanke began a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 1, 2010. Dr. Bernanke also serves as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the System's principal monetary policymaking body. He originally took office as Chairman on February 1, 2006, when he also began a 14-year term as a member of the Board. His second term as Chairman ends January 31, 2014, and his term as a Board member ends January 31, 2020.

Before his appointment as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke was Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006.

Dr. Bernanke has already served the Federal Reserve System in several roles. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2002 to 2005; a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia (1987-89), Boston (1989-90), and New York (1990-91, 1994-96); and a member of the Academic Advisory Panel at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1990-2002).

From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Bernanke was the Class of 1926 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Chair of the Economics Department at the university from 1996 to 2002. Dr. Bernanke had been a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton since 1985.

Before arriving at Princeton, Dr. Bernanke was an Associate Professor of Economics (1983-85) and an Assistant Professor of Economics (1979-83) at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His teaching career also included serving as a Visiting Professor of Economics at New York University (1993) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1989-90).

Dr. Bernanke has published many articles on a wide variety of economic issues, including monetary policy and macroeconomics, and he is the author of several scholarly books and two textbooks. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sloan Fellowship, and he is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Bernanke served as the Director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a member of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee. In July 2001, he was appointed Editor of the American Economic Review. Dr. Bernanke's work with civic and professional groups includes having served two terms as a member of the Montgomery Township (N.J.) Board of Education.

Dr. Bernanke was born in December 1953 in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Dillon, South Carolina. He received a B.A. in economics in 1975 from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in economics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Bernanke is married and has two children.