Recipients of the James Bryant Conant Award

Recipients of the Frank Newman Award for State Innovation

• 2008 North Dakota
• 2007 Alaska (for multiple initiatives)
• 2006 Kentucky (Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and other initiatives)
• 2005 Florida and Utah (co-winners, for multiple initiatives)
• 2004 North Carolina (NC TEACH) and South Carolina (The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement)
• 2003 Maryland (Visionary Panel for Better Schools)
• 2002 Alabama (Alabama Reading Initiative) and Texas (Texas Reading Initiative)
• 2001 Georgia – Universal Preschool Program
• 2000 Connecticut – Beginning Educator Support and Training (BEST) Program
• 1999 North Carolina - North Carolina Community College System
• 1998 Oregon - Students Recycling Used Technology (STRUT)

• 2008 Luther Olsen and Richard Rhoda
• 2007 Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Ewing Maring Kauffman Foundation and The Wallace Foundation
• 2006 Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
• 2005 Placido Domingo
• 2004 Carl Takamura, executive director, Hawaii Business Roundtable
• 2003 Ron Newcomb, education assistant to former Georgia Governor Roy E. Barnes
• 2002 Miles E. Turner, ECS Commissioner and Steering Committee Member from Wisconsin
• 2001 Ed Ford, Kentucky Deputy Secretary to the Executive Cabinet
• 2000 Ted Stilwill, Iowa Director of Education
• 1999 Ardyce L. Bohlke, Nebraska State Senator
• 1998 David H. Steele, Utah State Senator
• 1997 Howard P. "Pete" Rawlings, Maryland State Representative
• 1996 John Hansen, Idaho State Senator

• 2008 Simon Youth Foundation
• 2007 Pearson
• 2006 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
• 2005 Hewlett Packard Company
• 2004 MBNA Corporation
• 2003 Intel Corporation and Washington Mutual
• 2002 State Farm Insurance Companies
• 2001 MetLife and MetLife Foundation

Previous Winners of the James Bryant Conant Award

2008 - Ron Wolk
Ron Wolk is co-founder of The Chronicle of Higher Education and founder of Education Week. Wolk spent the first three years of his career as a newspaper reporter and magazine editor. He served as assistant to President Milton S. Eisenhower at Johns Hopkins University and shortly after, worked with Clark Kerr in Berkeley as assistant director of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Wolk also started and served as editor of Teacher Magazine. In 1996, he established Quality Counts, a special annual report on the condition of standards-based reform in all 50 states. He currently serves as a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Urban Education in Rhode Island; chairman of the Board of Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week; and chairman of the Board of the Big Picture Company.

2007 - Gaston Caperton
Formerly as governor of West Virginia and founding director of the Institute on Education and Governance at Columbia University, and presently as president of the College Board, Caperton has been an extraordinary education statesman. His contributions to education, at the state and national levels, have been truly outstanding. Thanks to his dedication and vision, West Virginia has been praised on numerous occasions for its commitment to educational technology. Since the mid-1990s, West Virginia has been ranked among the most technologically advanced in the nation each year by Education Week.
After serving as governor, Caperton went on to become the founding director of the Institute on Education and Governance at Teachers College, Columbia University. Anxious to help his fellow governors with education policymaking, he established education policy seminars for governors and their staffs through the Institute. His national impact on education increased with his appointment as president of the College Board in 1999. In this position, Gaston has championed the cause of underrepresented and disadvantaged students and focused a national spotlight on their academic needs. He has worked hard to expand access to Advanced Placement courses and examinations throughout the nation, including partnerships with historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions to increase the number of Advanced Placement teachers of color. He has also been unwavering in his support of equity in tuition and financial aid policies and programs, and, in 2005, created the College Board’s Task Force on College Access for Students from Low-Income Backgrounds to address this issue. Under his leadership, the College Board has also broadened its mission to serve students from middle grades through college completion.

2006 - Nancy S. Grasmick
Under Grasmick’s leadership over the past 15 years, Maryland has been a trailblazer and a top performer in areas ranging from standards-based school improvement to strategic planning to the education of children with disabilities. She is nationally respected for her leadership in building consensus among parents and educators on issues and programs for special education. These collaborations have led to an innovative model of funding for special education in Maryland that is systematically integrated with the state accountability system. Among her many accomplishments as superintendent are the establishment of a statewide Parent Advisory Council and the creation of a program that brings high-performing principals from other school districts into Baltimore City to run schools and train new leaders. She is a member of the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education and is the only K-12 education representative on the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century. She also served on a 20-member panel appointed by the National Academies that last fall issued the influential report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Over the years, Grasmick has served ECS with distinction as a member of the Steering Committee and various standing committees and as an ECS officer.

2005— Sharon Lynn Kagan
Sharon Lynn Kagan has been instumental in defining and building early childhood care and education as a critically important public policy field, and as the foundation for a lifetime of education and learning. Throughout her career, she has coupled research and policy to increase public understanding of, and investment in, the programs and services that support young children and their families. Kagan, more than any other person, has defined what a system of early childhood education should include. Her work has contributed to bringing together diverse stakeholders in the early childhood field -- child care, Head Start, school-based pre-kindergarten, and family child care and support. Kagan is currently professor adjunct at Yale University's Child Study Center, where she has been engaged in teaching and research since 1980. She has published more than 150 articles and written or edited 12 books focused on issues such as the development of policy for children and families, family support, early childhood pedagogy, strategies for collaboration and service integraion, and the evaluation of social programs. Over the years, Kagan has advised and mentored presidents, governors, legislators, foundation officials, teachers, graduate students and parents. She has served as a consultant to the White House, Congress, federal agencies, the National Governors Association and numerous states, foundations, corporations and professional associations. Return to top

2004— Thurgood Marshall and John H. Stelle
Thurgood Marshall
During his 24 years on the bench, Marshall was an ardent supporter of individual rights, freedom of the press and due process, and he never waivered in his devotion to ending discrimination. But many believe his greatest contribribution resulted from his role as the principal architect of the stategy that demolished the legal basis for segregation in America. In the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, the NAACP legal team, headed by Marshall, persuaded the Supreme Court to overturn the "separate-but-equal" doctrine that had been the law of the land since 1896. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where he served until being selected three years later as U.S. Solicitor General by President Lyndon Johnson. the crowning achievement of his career came in 1967, when he became the first African-American to be elevated to the Supreme Court. Return to top

John H. Stelle
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 -- better known as the GI Bill of Rights -- ranks among the most progressive and beneficial laws enacted by any nation. During the past six decades, the law has made possible the investment of billions of dollars in eduation and training for millions of veterans. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the GI Bill into law on June 22, 1944, it was the culmination of a remarkably well-executed effort in which a former Illinois governor named John H. Stelle played a crucial role. Stelle, a World War I veteran and past national commander of the American Legion, quarterbacked a team of Legion officials that, in the space of just six months, designed and put forth the main features of the GI Bill, organized massive public support and shepherded its successful passage through Congress. Stelle's leadership and behind-the-scens negotiating skills are widely credited for the legislation's surviving stubborn pockets of resistance, intense debate and a conference committee deadlock that nearly scuttled the bill at the 11th hour. Return to top

2003 — Roy Romer
Since July 2000 when he became superintendent of the nation's second-largest and perhaps the most-decentralized, lowest-performing school system, Romer has improved instruction in Los Angeles' elementary schools, where test scores in reading and math have climbed above the national average, results not seen there in decades. When he served as Colorado's governor from 1986 to 1998, Romer was the driving force behind many initiatives and laws that improved education for the state's children, as well as its adults, including: the "First Impressions" initiative that improved and made more accessible high-quality early childhood care and education; the Colorado Preschool Program that helps at-risk preschoolers prepare for school; the Colorado Child Care Resource and Referral System that helps families find quality child care; the Governor's Task Force on Early Childhood Professional Standards that defined what every child care provider needs to know and be able to do to be considered highly qualified; a law that made Colorado one of the first states to establish standards and a statewide assessment that measured them; authorization for school choice and charter schools; and the Internet-based Western Governors University (WGU), which offers competency-based courses from dozens of the nation's colleges, universities and corporations. (He worked with Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to establish WGU.) Additionally, while governor, Romer served as chairman of both the Education Commission of the States and the National Education Goals Panel. He was co-chairman of the National Council on Education Standards and Testing, and director of the National Assessment Governing Board and of Achieve. Return to top

2002 — Robert P. Moses
Founder of the Algebra Project, Robert P. Moses is a prime example of how one concerned individual can help pioneer new approaches to educating children. In 1982, Moses was invited by his daughter's 8th-grade teacher at the Martin Luther King School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to help several students who were struggling to learn algebra. His success in producing the school's first students to pass a citywide algebra examination and qualify for 9th-grade honors geometry laid the groundwork for what is today known as the Algebra Project. The Algebra Project, which has spread to 22 school districts in 17 states, is an interactive curriculum and teacher-training program designed to help disadvantaged inner-city and rural students better understand abstract mathematical concepts. Moses taught math in the New York City public schools from 1958 to 1961, was a civil-rights organizer in Mississippi in the 1960s and worked for the Ministry of Education in Tanzania from 1969 to 1975 before returning to the United States to pursue doctoral studies in philosophy at Harvard University. Moses, who was a MacArthur Fellow from 1982 through 1987, has received numerous public-service awards, and his work has been featured in the national media. Return to top

2001 — Fred ("Mister") Rogers
For three decades, Fred Rogers has provided this country and the world with a shining example of how television can be a positive force in educating and nurturing children. His half-hour PBS television series, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood—the longest-running television program on public television when it ended late 2001—has entertained, educated and inspired parents, educators and children. Rogers attended both the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963. In 1968, Rogers was appointed chairman of the forum on Mass Media and Child Development of the White House Conference on Youth. He has received Emmy Awards and many others throughout his career. He chairs Family Communications, Inc.  Return to top

2000 — John Goodlad
Starting as a teacher in a rural, one-room school in Canada, Goodlad since has been involved in an array of education reform programs and projects, and has engaged in large-scale studies of education change, schooling and teacher education. At the age of 79, in addition to advancing a comprehensive program of research and development directed to the simultaneous renewal of schooling and teacher education, Goodlad continues to inquire about education's mission in a democratic society. He has authored, co-authored or edited more than 30 books and numerous chapters, papers and articles; he also has received many distinguished awards. Goodlad has taught at all grade levels and in a variety of institutions. He is professor emeritus of education and co-director of the Center for Educational Renewal at the University of Washington in Seattle and president of the independent Institute for Educational Inquiry.  Return to top

1999 — Frank Newman
Newman has had an outstanding career in business and education, with a national reputation as a leader for higher education reform. He chaired the first U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare task force on reforming higher education, from which the 1971 "Newman Report" was issued. He then authored "The Second Newman Report" with further recommendations for higher education reform. Newman was president of ECS for 14 years before leaving to serve as Distinguished Lecturer at Columbia University's Teachers College and accept an appointment at Brown University's Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. Before joining ECS, he was president of the University of Rhode Island from 1974-83 and Presidential Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Currently, Newman is Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Project Director at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University, and director of The Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World.   Return to top

1998 — Robert Slavin
The well-known initiatives developed by Slavin (in partnership with his wife, Nancy Madden) have garnered national attention for improving student achievement, especially among at-risk children. Slavin's classroom beginnings were as a special education teacher. From this experience, he developed Success for All, which emphasizes the importance of reading, and Roots and Wings, which tackles the entire school, from professional development to accountability for results. Slavin now serves as co-director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk.  Return to top

1997 — Claiborne Pell
In 1972, U.S. Senator Pell of Rhode Island authored and witnessed passage of legislation that created Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, renamed "Pell" grants to honor the senator. He also established the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He initiated and helped pass many other specialized bills in the areas of drunk driving, high-speed rail transportation services, environmental education, libraries, historic preservation, education for the handicapped and the economy. He has received honorary doctorates from 50 colleges and universities and recorded some of his insights in two books, Power and Policy and Megalopolis Unbound. He also co-authored Challenge of the Seven Seas.  Return to top

1996 — John W. Gardner
Gardner led a multi-faceted career, beginning as a psychology teacher at the University of California and then serving with the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Marine Corps. Gardner became president of Carnegie Corporation and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1955. He was U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare from 19965-68 before becoming chairman of the National Urban Coalition. In 1970, Gardner founded Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens' group committed to lobbying elected officials on national issues of mutual concern. He helped found and served as chairman for Independent Sector, a national forum for volunteer organizations. He has served as a consultant or member of many government agencies and task forces, and has published many books and papers. Before his death at age 89 in February 2002, Gardner was a consulting professor at Stanford University's School of Education in California.  Return to top

1995 — Richard W. Riley
Richard W. Riley was U.S. secretary of education during the Clinton administration. A major accomplishment was passage of the Education Improvement Act (EIA), an extensive program built through a strong coalition of businesspeople, educators and parents. Academic standards, testing, teaching, management, accountability, business partnerships, school climate and higher education were among the areas affected by this sweeping change. Riley also served as South Carolina's governor for two terms and has been highly commended for inspiring new thinking and taking bold actions that have led to positive solutions for America's troubled education system. The Richard W. Riley College of Education at Rock Hill, South Carolina, is dedicated to preparing education leaders who are committed to a lifelong quest for excellence in teaching, learning and service to society.  Return to top

1994 — Ernest Boyer
Boyer became president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1979. He previously served as U.S. commissioner of education and chancellor of the state university of New York and held administrative posts in many of California's higher education institutions. Additionally, he has been a senior fellow at several universities and a Fulbright scholar to India and Chile. Boyer was selected by his peers as the nation's leading educator (1983) and named Educator of the Year by U.S. News and World Report (1990). Boyer died in 1995.  Return to top

1993 — Wilhelmina Delco
From 1974 until her retirement in January 1995, Delco served in the Texas House of Representatives where she greatly influenced the area of higher education. During the Clinton Administration, she was appointed by U.S. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley as chairwoman of the U.S. Department of Education's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. She also was chairwoman of the Compact for Faculty Diversity, a consortium of the New England Board of Education, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and the Southern Regional Education Board.  Return to top

1992 — Theodore R. Sizer
Theodore R. Sizer is founder and chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national network of schools and centers engaged in restructuring and redesigning schools to promote better student learning and achievement. He wrote Horace's Compromise (1985), Horace's School (1992) and Horace's Hope (1996) which explore the ideas of the Essential school reform effort. He is university professor emeritus at Brown University where he served as chair of the Education Department from 1984 to 1989. Before coming to Brown, Sizer was professor and dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and headmaster of Phillips (Andover) Academy. Sizer and his wife are co-authors of the recently published book, The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract. He currently is teaching a course on education policy at Brandeis University, as well as co-teaching a secondary school design course with Nancy Faust Sizer at Harvard University.  Return to top

1991 — James P. Comer
Since 1968, Comer has been a Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center, which aims to bridge child psychiatry and education. He is perhaps best known for the founding of the Comer School Development Program in 1968, which promotes the collaboration of parents, educators and community to improve social, emotional and academic outcomes for children that, in turn, helps them achieve greater school success. Comer is a prolific writer and has authored seven books, more than 150 articles for Parents magazine and more than 300 syndicated articles on children's health and development and race relations. He has served as a consultant to the Children's Television Workshop, which produces Sesame Street and Electric Company, and was a consultant to the Public Committee on Mental Health chaired by Rosalyn Carter, as well as a member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. Since 1994, Comer has served as a member of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. He also has been associated with the National Launch Committee for Americorps and the National Campaign to Reduce Youth Violence. Comer has received many honorary degrees and awards during his career.  Return to top

1989 — Fred Hechinger
Hechinger has devoted much of his career as a reporter, columnist, editor, author and foundation executive to issues of education and policies affecting children and society. He has told education's story through the pages of The Bridgeport (Connecticut) Herald, the Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, the Bridgeport Sunday Herald, the New York Times, The Saturday Review and Harper's, in addition to several books. Hechinger also taught at the City University of New York and the New School for Social Research. He is a senior adviser at Carnegie Corporation of New York. Hechinger died in 1995.  Return to top

1988 — Lamar Alexander
Alexander, former candidate for the U.S. presidency, has been governor of Tennessee, president of the University of Tennessee and U.S. secretary of education. He led the governors' state-by-state better schools survey, Time for Results, and served as chairman of the task force that revised The Nation's Report Card. He also served for two years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress board of directors. Alexander is a Goodman Visiting Professor of the Practice of Public Service at Harvard University. He lives in Nashville where he is chairman of the Salvation Army Initiative to help families move from welfare to work.  Return to top

1987 — Marian Wright Edelman
Founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), Edelman has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. She was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, founded the Washington Research Project, a public-interest law firm and parent body of the CDF, and has served as director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University. Edelman has received many honorary degrees and awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award and a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings.  Return to top

1986 — Harold Howe II
Howe began his career as a history teacher, then became a principal and superintendent of schools in Scarsdale, New York. He has been active in education for more than 50 years and shows no sign of slowing his interest or his pace. Howe was a U.S. commissioner of education under President Lyndon Johnson. He also held positions at the Learning Institute of North Carolina, the Ford Foundation, Duke University and Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, from which he retired in June 1994. At 82, when Howe pauses for a moment and says thoughtfully, "I think the economic division in society is rapidly becoming the most divisive force of all," it is clear that this deeply generous and caring man is not flagging in his resolve to do what he can to be part of the national conversation about improving society in general and schooling in particular.  Return to top

1985 — Terrel Bell
Bell is best known for his leadership in establishing the National Commission on Excellence in Education and his contributions to the commission's report, A Nation at Risk. He served as U.S. secretary of education; U.S. commissioner of education; superintendent of schools in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho; administrator at Utah State University and the University of Utah; and as a high school teacher. Bell worked to transform schools into high-tech institutions, which he believed was the next step needed to reform America's education system. He died in 1996.  Return to top

1985 — David Gardner
Gardner has been president and vice president of the nine-campus University of California, president of the University of Utah, and faculty member and chancellor at the University of California's Santa Barbara campus. In 1981, he chaired the National Commission on Excellence in Education, whose 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, sparked the national effort to improve and reform American education. Gardner is president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and board member and director of several organizations.  Return to top

1984 — James B. Hunt Jr.
Currently an attorney in the firm of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Hunt served four terms as governor of North Carolina, and has been at the forefront of education reform in his state and in the nation. His Smart Start program received the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award from the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1985, Hunt co-chaired with David Hamburg the "Committee of 50," which led to the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy and, eventually, to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He also chairs the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future at Stanford University and is on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.  Return to top

1983 — Carl D. Perkins
Perkins, a Kentucky Congressman from 1949 until his death in 1984, chaired the highly influential House Education and Labor Committee. In that post, he was responsible for landmark education initiatives, including legislation supporting funding for vocational education. The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 was signed into law on October 31, 1998 and became effective in July 1, 1999.  Return to top

1982 — John Brademas
Brademas, president emeritus of New York University (NYU), was NYU president from 1981 to 1992. From 1959 to 1981, he served as a U.S. representative from Indiana and earned a reputation for his leadership in education. In Congress, Brademas was a member of the Education and Labor Committee and chief architect of the International Education Act and National Institute of Education. He also was a major sponsor of the Higher Education Acts of 1972 and 1976. Under President Clinton's administration, he was chairman of the Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, was chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy and a member of the Consultants' Panel to the Comptroller General of the United States.  Return to top

1981 — Terry Sanford
Sanford, ECS co-founder, became president emeritus of Duke University in 1985 and spent much of his professional life working to improve the quality of America's education system. Sanford served as U.S. senator, governor and state legislator in North Carolina, Children's Television Workshop director, university president and attorney. He died in 1998.  Return to top

1980 — Ralph Tyler
According to the Board of Directors of the National Society for the Study of Education, ". [Tyler's] distinguished services to education.[spanning] more than six decades, and his remarkable achievements in many and varied fields, will be noted elsewhere again and again. He leaves a legacy that extends well beyond.education." In 1954, Tyler co-founded and became first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and served as such for 13 years. He died in February 1994.  Return to top

1979 — Francis Keppel
Born the son of a Columbia College dean and Carnegie Corporation president, Keppel spent all of his 73 years involved in education. His career posts included dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, U.S. commissioner of education and assistant secretary for Health, Education and Welfare. He also directed the Aspen Institute's education policy program, and was overseer and senior lecturer at Harvard University. Keppel died in 1990.  Return to top

1978 — Joan Ganz Cooney
Cooney, co-founder of the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) and originator of Sesame Street, served as CTW's president and chief executive officer until 1990. She currently chairs the Sesame Workshop Board and sits on several corporate boards. Cooney has been a member of many special commissions and has received numerous awards for her outstanding achievements. Cooney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.  Return to top

1977 — Benjamin Mays
Mays, noted for his achievements in faculty development, civil rights and combating declining enrollments, spent 27 years as president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; 12 years as president of the Atlanta School Board; and six years as dean of the Howard University School of Religion. He also was an English instructor at the State College of South Carolina, an ordained Baptist minister and author of several books. Mays died in 1984. Return to top