Good news for fans of overhauling high schools: Two veterans of the Alliance for Excellent Education, whose signature issues include boosting graduation rates and high school quality, are likely to play key roles in helping lawmakers craft the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Bethany Little already serves as the top education adviser on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Now, Jamie Fasteau has been hired by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, as a senior education policy adviser. The position was left vacant when Alice Johnson Cain left the committee to work on teacher quality issues for the Hope Street Group.
Most recently Fasteau, whose bio you can find here, served as a vice president at the alliance. Before that, she worked for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., focusing on legislation affecting children and families. And she was a senior lobbyist for the National PTA, as well as a government-relations manager for the American Association of University Women.
The alliance, which is headed by former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, a Democrat, has been instrumental in shining a spotlight on schools with very high dropout rates, and in helping to champion legislative remedies such as these bills. Having Little and Fasteau in such important staff positions could give a boost to those efforts.