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Michael Dannenberg    

Education Policy Expert

Michael Dannenberg is a Principal with Creative Policy Partners LLC and long-time senior advisor to various public officials, including former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), multiple past Democratic Party nominees for President, and gubernatorial candidates.

While in the Executive Branch, Dannenberg led work on various student aid, college completion, and teacher education reform initiatives. While with Senators Kennedy and Pell, he played a lead role in developing and drafting two Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization laws, the Education Finance Incentive Grant Program, Taxpayer-Teacher Protection Act, and numerous provisions contained in higher education and appropriations law. He was the lead staff author of the College Quality, Affordability, and Diversity Improvement Act, sponsored by Senator Kennedy. He spearheaded the Senate Democrats’ college admissions reform strategy work during U.S. Supreme Court consideration of the Gratz and Grueter affirmative action cases. National Journal named Dannenberg to "The Hill 100" list of Congress' most influential aides.

In between government stints, Dannenberg has run policy programs at other advocacy groups and think tanks, including at Education Reform Now where he was the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Higher Education Policy and led robust work on college access, admission, affordability, and completion reform; at Education Trust where he was Director of Higher Education Policy where he spearheaded a “Doing Away With Debt” campaign, and at the New America Foundation where he founded and managed the PK-16 Education Policy Program and Federal Education Budget Project. Dannenberg and his work have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and The American Prospect. He has testified before Congress as well as made broadcast appearances on PBS, WNYC, C-SPAN, CNBC, MSNBC, and the CBS news program, 60 Minutes. He is a first-generation college graduate, self-financed all postsecondary education, and holds degrees from Boston University, Stanford University, and Yale Law School.

Speech Topics


Post-SFFA Affirmative Action College Admissions Policy:

Racial and economic diversity are both essential ingredients to campus life. How can colleges and universities promote both types of diversity after the Supreme Court’s ruling on race in admissions?

What can we learn from colleges that have faced bans on using race at the state level? What do we know about “affirmative access” programs at the state and local level? Hear how to structure admissions, college access initiatives, and recruitment to produce heightened racial and economic diversity to and through completion of higher education.

How do using admissions factors such as overcoming low family wealth, high neighborhood poverty levels, and modest parental income and education levels promote fairness and implicitly address our nation’s history of racial discrimination?

How can universities find the resources to pay for this new type of affirmative action? And what can state and local leaders do to ensure there is a pipeline of qualified, financially capable, and fully supported students from historically underserved populations?

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