John (Jack) D. Donahue is an Indiana native, now teaching at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His research encompasses issues that arise along the boundary between business and government, and how to allocate responsibilities across levels of government and between the public and private sectors.

Professional background:

* Faculty Chair for the Kearns Program on Business, Government, and Education and the Raymond Vernon Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1996-present) * Book review editor, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (present) * Director, Visions of Governance in the 21st Century project at Harvard (2000-03) * Counsel to Secretary of Labor (1994-95) * Assistant secretary in the Department of Labor under Clinton; focused on reform of education and training programs; immigration; and tax preferences for education and the hiring of disadvantaged workers (1993-94) * Lecturer, Harvard University (1987-93)

Education:

* Bachelor s degree from Indiana University * Master's degree in pubic policy from Harvard University * Ph.D. from Harvard University

Member of the following boards of directors:

* Francis W. Parker Essential Charter School * Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, advisory committee

Partial list of consulting clients:

* National Economic Council * The World Bank * The RAND Corporation * Price Waterhouse

Selected Publications:

* Market-Based Governance: Supply Side, Demand Side, Upside and Downside (co-edited with Joseph S. Nye, Jr.), 2002 * The Privatization Decision (1989, with four translations 1990-92) * Disunited States (1997)

Links to Ideas: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions/publication/list.htm

Quotations:

Workforce development is treated as "the poor stepchild of the human capital system." - MassINC, 2000

Job Description:

The secretary advises the president on the state of education and is instrumental in the No Child Left Behind program. The ED's mission is to strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual; to supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education; to encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs; to promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information; to improve the coordination of Federal education programs; and to improve the management of Federal education activities; and Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.

Nominating Speech:

Nominated by: Progressive Government Institute

Support true academic standards and reject punitive standardized testing that deprives schools of funding solely because of low test scores;

Support not penalize school districts that need extra help because they have many poor, minority or immigrant students;

Work to restore public education as an effective vehicle for social mobility, as it has been for so much of our country's history;

Open up many routes to higher education;

Improve teacher pay, dignity and respect;

Reject voucher systems and other privatization schemes;

Protect our students from commercial influences and marketing in their schools;

Understand that in addition to training for good jobs, the public education system must educate responsible, engaged citizens.