Olin Lecture 2012 Michelle Rhee '92

Friday, June 8, 2012 at 3:00pm to 4:15pm

Bailey Hall

The Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Foundation Lecturer for Reunion 2012, Michelle A. Rhee '92, will speak on education reform in the United States.

Michelle graduated from Cornell in 1992 with an AB degree in Government. She is a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Upon graduation, she was recruited by Wendy Kopp, founder of the nonprofit Teach for America where she taught for three years in a Baltimore inner city school.

After her teaching stint, she went to Harvard and received a Master of Public Policy degree in 1997. That same year she then began her own nonprofit The New Teacher Project that recruited teachers for urban school districts around the country.

She eventually created a political action organization in 2011 named StudentsFirst and vowed to sign up one million members and spend $1 billion in one year.

“Michelle Rhee has been working for the last eighteen years to give children the skills and knowledge they will need to compete in a changing world. From adding instructional time after school and visiting students' homes as a third grade teacher in Baltimore, to hosting hundreds of community meetings and creating a Youth Cabinet to bring students' voices into reforming the DC Public Schools, she has always been guided by one core principle: put students first.”

Each chapter of Michelle's story has convinced her: students of every background and zip code can achieve at high levels, and for our schools to become what children deserve, every educator is called to believe this. Even in the toughest of circumstances, all teachers are called to turn the incredible potential that fills their classrooms daily, into the achievements worthy of our children and country.