Nominate Leslie T. Fenwick for Secretary of Education.

In the four decades history of the United States Department of Education, there have only been three women secretaries of education, and no woman of color has served as the lead educator in the nation. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the Fall of 2017, more than 76% of teachers were women, and more than half the enrolled public school students were Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or more than one race. 

All research indicates that when teachers come from the same racial, linguistic, cultural and ethnic background as their students, students experience more success. We need the country's top teacher to be deeply committed to ensuring that the best, most experienced, most qualified and most representative educators are in the lowest performing schools. Then we need to treat those highly qualified and representative teachers like the adult professionals they are. Leslie T. Fenwick has dedicated her long career in education to these goals because they are the best way to create schools of equity, justice, and excellence for all students.

She is the right person for the job for so many reasons. Her background as a classroom teacher, her research in the education of K-12 students, as well her long years of experience as a professor, a dean and the life partner of a university president, uniquely qualify her for the broad responsibilities of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.

The pandemic has created a crisis in education at all levels--from early childhood education to graduate school. Dr. Fenwick has spent her career addressing the root causes of school failure: segregation, systemic racism, general poverty, and the chronic trauma too many public schools students live with. For more than twenty years the DOE has tried to address these crises by promoting school choice, privatization, and an emphasis on standardized testing and teacher accountability. Market-based solutions have eroded our commitment to public schools, undermined the teaching profession and removed the joy of learning for far too many vulnerable children. 

We cannot rebuild our schools after the pandemic without an understanding of the underlying causes of school failure. The only way to address the learning loss the corona virus pandemic has engendered is by implementing child-centered, teacher-driven, pro-public school policies.

We, the undersigned, believe that Leslie T. Fenwick is the person most qualified to do this challenging work and to bring healing and justice to our public schools.