Lynne Munson, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMON CORE. Ms. Munson is also president of Six Consulting, Inc., which provides education policy advice and research to clients at the state and national levels. She served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from 2001–2005, overseeing all agency operations. During her tenure, the NEH awarded over 3,600 grants totaling more than $442 million for institution-building projects, in addition to basic scholarly research, preservation and archival projects, museum exhibitions, and documentary films.

She is also Adjunct Fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity where she writes on the issue of higher education endowment spending. In September 2007, Ms. Munson testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the issue of college and university endowment hoarding and has advised Senate staff regarding potential policy remedies in this area.

Ms. Munson led the first United States government delegation to Afghanistan in 2005 to deal with issues of cultural reconstruction. In 2004, she represented the United States at UNESCO meetings in Australia and Japan where she helped to negotiate guidelines for cross-border higher education. In 1998 and 1999 Ms. Munson provided expert testimony on higher education remediation programs to the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York and the Mayor’s Advisory Task Force on CUNY Reform.

Ms. Munson is the author of Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance (Ivan R. Dee, 2000) and has written on contemporary cultural and educational issues for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Inside Higher Education. She has appeared on CNN, FoxNews, CNBC, C-SPAN, and NPR, and speaks to scholarly and public audiences. Ms. Munson earned a bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University.

Earlier this year, Common Core's report shows a nation STILL AT RISK. Nearly a quarter of students polled could not identify Adolf Hitler and half had no idea what the Renaissance was. To learn more read the report, press release or stories at ABC News, CBS News, The New York Times, and USA TODAY. Or take the test yourself.

FROM THE BENCH: "One unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, …, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for that. And at least half of the states no longer make the teaching of civics and government a requirement for high school graduation. This leaves a huge gap, and we can't forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government," former justice Sandra Day O'Connor said. (cont'd)

CAMPAIGN FILE: Sen. John McCain recalls his English teacher: “There was one friendship that enriched my life at Episcopal High School beyond measure... Mr. Ravenel was head of the English Department... He loved English literature, and taught us to love it as well... He made us appreciate how profound were the emotions that animated the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies. MacBeth and Hamlet in his care were as compelling to boys as they were to the most learned scholar.” (cont'd)

CAMPAIGN FILE: Sen. Barack Obama said “One of the problems with No Child Left Behind is that it has become so reliant on a standardized test model that—first of all—subjects like history and social studies have gotten pushed aside. Arts and music time is no longer there. So the child is not having the well-rounded educational experience I benefited from and most in my generation benefited from.” (cont'd)