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May 13, 2009
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Governor Bob Wise
Governor Bob Wise is a sought-after, respected speaker and advisor on education issues. He has advised the U.S. Department of Education and frequently testifies before the U.S. Congress. As governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005, he fought for and signed legislation to fund the PROMISE Scholarship Program, which has helped thousands of West Virginia students remain in the Mountain State for college. Governor Wise also established a character education curriculum in all state schools and created the Governor’s Helpline for Safer Schools. During his administration, West Virginia saw a significant increase in the number of students completing high school and entering college. He also signed major legislation creating a nationally recognized pre-K program that will eventually cover all the state’s four-year-old children.
In 2001, Governor Wise proposed salary bonuses for teachers who achieve National Board certification, which helped triple the rate of certified teachers in the state. Additionally, Education Week’s Quality Counts 2004 report gave West Virginia its highest cumulative grade out of all fifty states. As governor, he was also the first West Virginian to chair the Southern Governors’ Association.
From 1983 to 2001, Governor Wise served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 2nd District of West Virginia. During his tenure, he worked aggressively to preserve federal financial aid for students to attend college. For several terms, he was a member of the Democratic Party Leadership team as a regional whip and as a whip-at-large. Committee assignments during these eighteen years included Transportation and Infrastructure, Government Reform and Organization, and Budget. Among his notable Congressional accomplishments are the Chemical Right to Know legislation, the Wise Amendment to the Clean Air Act, and first-ever federal Mental Health Parity legislation.
Governor Bob Wise became president of the Alliance for Excellent Education in February 2005. Under his leadership, the Alliance has continued to build its reputation as a respected authority on high school policy and to advocate for reform in America’s secondary education system, working to ensure that all students graduate from high school prepared for success.
Governor Wise also serves on the Public Education Network’s board of directors; the board of trustees of America’s Promise; and is an advisory committee member for a number of organizations, among them the Campaign for Educational Equity, Editorial Projects in Education, and the National High School Center, which is funded by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Special Education Programs and housed at the American Institutes for Research. He also serves on the board of directors of C-Change, which works to eliminate cancer as a major public health risk at the earliest possible time.
Governor Wise is the author of the book Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth And Our Nation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University in 1970 and a JD from Tulane University College of Law in 1975. He recently earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He and wife, Sandy, live in Washington, DC with their two children.
The Alliance for Excellent Education
Mission: The mission of the Alliance for Excellent Education is to promote high school transformation to make it possible for every child to graduate prepared for postsecondary learning and success in life.
About the Alliance: The Alliance for Excellent Education is a national policy and advocacy organization that works to make every child a high school graduate - to prepare them for college, work, and to be contributing members of society. Founded in 2001, the Alliance focuses on America’s six million most at-risk secondary school students - those in the lowest achievement quartile - who are most likely to leave school without a diploma or to graduate unprepared for a productive future.
The Alliance works to encourage the development and implementation of federal and national policies that support effective high school reform and increased student achievement and attainment. It works to synthesize and distribute research and information about promising practices that enlightens the national debate about education policies and options. The Alliance provides sound, objective, nonpartisan advice that informs decisions about policy creation and implementation. Working with educators, researchers, business leaders, citizen groups, and decisionmakers at the local, state, and national levels, the Alliance develops federal policy recommendations and advocates to policymakers in the federal government.
To encourage public awareness and action that support effective secondary school reform, the Alliance hosts and makes presentations at meetings and conferences across the country; produces reports, briefs, and other publications; and issues regular releases providing the press and others with national and state-level data and information about the impact of improving educational achievement and attainment levels for secondary school students. The Alliance publishes a bi-weekly newsletter, Straight A’s, which provides information on public education policy and progress in an accessible format.
Tags: Achievement Gap, Bob Wise
