Melinda French Gates is an American philanthropist, former multimedia product developer and manager at Microsoft and the ex-wife of its co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates. French Gates has consistently been ranked as one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes magazine.
Thomas Loren Friedman is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' struggle for independence. A non-profit group, they promote education and patriotism. The organization's membership is limited to direct lineal descendants of soldiers or others of the Revolutionary period who aided the cause of independence; applicants must have reached 18 years of age and are reviewed at the chapter level for admission. The DAR has over 185,000 current members in the United States and other countries. Its motto is "God, Home, and Country".
Columba Bush is a Mexican-American philanthropist. As the wife of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, she served as the First Lady of Florida from 1999 to 2007.
Theodore Roosevelt High School, usually referred to simply as Roosevelt High School or TRHS, is a public secondary school located on the west side of Des Moines, Iowa. It is one of five secondary schools in the Des Moines Independent Community School District, and was named after the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
Alma Woodsey Thomas was an African-American artist and teacher who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. Thomas is best known for the "exuberant", colorful, abstract paintings that she created after her retirement from a 35-year career teaching art at Washington's Shaw Junior High School.
The Lab School of Washington is a small independent school in Washington, D.C. for students with language based learning differences like dyslexia. The Lab School was established in 1967 by Sally Smith. Kim Wargo has directed the school since July 2020. The Lab School of Washington has an arts centered curriculum on two campuses: one on Reservoir Road, NW for middle through high school, the other on Foxhall Road NW for elementary students.
Michelle Ann Rhee is an American educator and advocate for education reform. She was Chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools from 2007 to 2010. In late 2010, she founded StudentsFirst, a non-profit organization that works on education reform.
The Franklin School is a building designed by Adolf Cluss in the German round-arch style, located on Franklin Square at 13th and K Street in Washington, D.C. It was constructed in 1869 and initially served as a flagship school building. It later took on various other educational roles, and became a homeless shelter in the 2000s. In 2020, it became the location of the Planet Word museum after its interior was largely gutted.
Franklin Square is a square in downtown Washington, D.C. Purportedly named after Benjamin Franklin, it is bounded by K Street NW to the north, 13th Street NW on the east, I Street NW on the south, and 14th Street NW on the west. It is served by the McPherson Square station of the Washington Metro, which is located just southwest of the park.
Balanced literacy is a theory of teaching reading and writing that arose in the 1990s and has a variety of interpretations. For some, balanced literacy strikes a balance between whole language and phonics and puts an end to the so called reading wars. Others say balanced literacy, in practice, usually means the whole language approach to reading.
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
Jill Tracy Biden is an American educator and the current first lady of the United States since 2021, as the second wife of President Joe Biden. She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, Biden has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is thought to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a paying job during her husband's tenure.
MacKenzie Scott is an American novelist and philanthropist. As of December 2022, she has a net worth of US$27 billion, owing to a 4% stake in Amazon, the company founded by her ex-husband Jeff Bezos. As such, Scott is the third-wealthiest woman in the United States and the 35th-wealthiest individual in the world. Scott was named one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes in 2021, and one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Enid Haupt was an American publisher and philanthropist whose gifts supported horticulture, the arts, architectural and historic preservation, and cancer research. She has been described as "the greatest patron American horticulture has ever known" by Gregory Long, the president of the New York Botanical Garden.
EduCap is an American private non-profit education finance company that was established in 1987. The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation is the philanthropic affiliate of EduCap Inc.
Matthew Bucksbaum was an American businessman and philanthropist. Matthew and his brothers Martin and Maurice co-founded General Growth Properties.
Melva Jane Bucksbaum was an American art collector, curator, and patron of the arts.
Planet Word is a language arts museum that opened in Washington, DC, in October 2020. The museum is described as "The museum where language comes to life" and features interactive exhibits dedicated to topics such as the history of the English Language, how children learn words, languages around the world, humor, poetry, and how music and advertising use words. It is located in the historic Franklin School building, designed by Adolf Cluss, located on Franklin Square at 13th and K Street.
Agnes Mathilda Samuelson was an American educator and a state superintendent in public schools. She worked to provide equal education for all students in Iowa. She was posthumously inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1976 and a Des Moines elementary school was named after her.
