Geoffrey Canada created the Harlem Children’s Zone, which the New York Times called “one of the most ambitious social-policy experiments of our time.” Canada is renowned worldwide for his pioneering work helping children and families in Harlem and as a thought leader and passionate advocate for education reform.

In June 2020, Canada founded the William Julius Wilson Institute, which will serve as the national platform to help communities impacted by poverty across the country design and implement their own place-based programs—and its first initiative will be to combat the devastation of COVID-19 in the Black community.

Canada was named to the TIME 100 list of most influential people in the world and one of Fortune’s 50 greatest leaders in the world. He grew up in the South Bronx and received a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Cheryl Crazy Bull, Wacinyanpi Win (They Depend on Her), Sicangu Lakota, is president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. A lifelong educator and community activist, Crazy Bull is an advocate for self-determination focused on Native voice, philosophy, and traditions as the heart of the people’s work in building prosperity for current and future generations.

Crazy Bull’s experience includes serving Sinte Gleska University as a faculty member, department chair, dean of academic affairs, and vice president of administration; St. Francis Indian School as chief educational officer; and Northwest Indian College as president for 10 years.

She was awarded an honorary cultural degree from Sinte Gleska University, an honorary doctorate from Seattle University, and other honors for her leadership as a Native educator and Native woman.

Myra Jones-Taylor is the chief policy officer at ZERO TO THREE, the national leader on infant-toddler policy and program development. There, she leads the development and implementation of the organization’s policy agenda, priorities and strategies; oversees the Policy Center, which includes federal and state policy and advocacy; and serves as the principal spokesperson for the organization on public policy matters.

Jones-Taylor previously served as Connecticut’s founding commissioner of Early Childhood, the state agency responsible for early care and education, home visiting, early intervention, and child care licensing in the state. She earned a doctorate in American studies and anthropology from Yale University and is an Ascend fellow and a Pahara fellow at the Aspen Institute. She writes and speaks about race, racial identity, and social inequality. She is also an active board member for several national organizations, including All Our Kin and the Irving Harris Foundation.

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. He also founded Khan Lab School, a nonprofit laboratory school in Mountain View, California, where Sal also teaches.

Sal’s interest in education began while he was an undergraduate at MIT. He developed software for children with ADHD, tutored public school students, and taught test prep courses for the MCAT. He holds three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Khan Academy offers free lessons in many subjects. High school students can prepare for the SAT on Khan Academy with free Official SAT® Practice. Teachers use Khan Academy to make assignments, track student progress, identify gaps in learning, and provide tailored instruction. More than 61 million registered users access Khan Academy in dozens of languages in more than 190 countries.

Takeru “TK” Nagayoshi teaches high school AP English, writing, and research in New Bedford, Mass. Having joined education through Teach for America, he is interested in advocating for education policy and law through an equity lens.

Nagayoshi was named the 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year—the state’s top award for educators. He was also awarded the 2019 Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teacher Leadership Award from Teach for America for his impact inside and outside the classroom.

When not teaching or coaching, Nagayoshi lends his voice to conversations on education-related policy issues, be they through his participation on panels and committees or through op-ed writing. He earned a B.A. in international relations from Brown University and an M.Ed. in curriculum and teaching from Boston University.

Alan C. Page is the first African American to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court. He was first elected to the court in 1992 and served until he reached the mandatory retirement age in 2015. Law was his second career; he was first known for his skills in football. In 1988, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In 1988, Page and his wife, Diane, founded the Page Education Foundation, which assists Minnesota students of color in their pursuit of postsecondary education. To date, the foundation has awarded $15 million in grants to 7,000 students. Page received his B.A. in political science from the University of Notre Dame and his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1978. Page is also an honored recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Gerard Robinson served as commissioner of education for the state of Florida and secretary of education for the commonwealth of Virginia. He has also served as executive director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity and director and president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and was a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Robinson is co-editor of Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons (2019) and Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice (2017). In addition, he co-hosts The Learning Curve: National Education Podcast. Robinson has been published or quoted in AEI Ideas, Gallup News, Newsweek, the Hedgehog Review, the Hill, the New York Times, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and US News & World Report. He earned a B.A. and an Ed.M. from Harvard University and an A.A. from El Camino Community College.

Deborah A. Santiago is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Excelencia in Education. For more than 20 years, she has led efforts from the community to national and federal levels to improve educational opportunities and success for all students. She co-founded Excelencia in Education to inform policy and practice, compel action, and collaborate with those ready to increase student success. Santiago has been cited in numerous publications for her work, including the Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, and Chronicle of Higher Education. She serves on the board of visitors for the University of Mary Washington, the advisory board of thedream.us, and the board of directors for Higher Achievement.

Amy Scott is a senior correspondent for Marketplace, public radio’s suite of business and economics shows, where she covers housing and the economy and frequently fills in as a host. From 2010 to 2018, she led Marketplace’s education coverage, earning Gracie Awards in 2014 and 2013 and an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2012.

In 2015, Scott completed the independent documentary film OYLER, about a Cincinnati public school fighting to break the cycle of poverty in its traditionally Urban Appalachian neighborhood. From 2003 to 2010, she reported from Marketplace’s New York bureau, where she focused on the culture of Wall Street and became bureau chief in 2008.

Before joining Marketplace in 2001, she worked as a reporter in Dillingham, Alaska. She’s now based in Baltimore.

Linda K. Smith is the director of early childhood policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a D.C.-based think tank that promotes bipartisanship and works to find consensus and common ground on key challenges. Smith is the former deputy assistant secretary of early childhood development at the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she led policy efforts and coordination of agency priorities for children from birth to five years old, including the Head Start, Early Head Start, and Child Care, and served as the liaison to other federal agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of Defense, and Department of Agriculture.

Smith has served as executive director for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (now Child Care Aware of America), as a professional staffer on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and as the director of the Office of Family Policy for the Secretary of Defense. Smith has also held positions with the U.S. Army and Air Force. She began her career in early childhood education on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in her native state of Montana. She is a graduate of the University of Montana.

Michael Thomas is the superintendent of the 27,000-student School District 11 in Colorado Springs. Previously, he served as chief of academics in Minneapolis Public Schools. He also worked as a district coordinator for equity and integration at Osseo Area Schools in Minnesota.

Before working at a district level, Thomas served as a school principal and began his career as an elementary school-level social worker. He earned a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of St. Thomas, with a dissertation focused on how African American male administrators navigate cultural sacrifice in predominately White school systems.