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Guest Name
Leonie Haimson
Guest Occupation
Executive Director of Class Size Matters
Guest Biography

Leonie Haimson is Executive Director of Class Size Matters, a non-profit parent advocacy group working for smaller class sizes in NYC and the nation as a whole. The New York Times has called her the “city’s leading proponent of smaller classes.” She was a public school parent for fifteen years, and is now a board member of the Network for Public Education, the national organization started by Diane Ravitch in 2013. Recently she spearheaded the battle against states and districts disclosing personal student information to a corporation called inBloom Inc., and through inBloom with for-profit vendors without parental consent. She writes for the NYC Public School Parent blog, where she broke the story of the flawed Pineapple passage and questions on the 2012 NY state exams. Her articles and opinion pieces have been published in Education Week, the New York Times, the Nation, New York Daily News, InsideSchools, In These Times, the Washington Post Answer Sheet, Gothamschools/Chalkbeat, Schoolbook, Gotham Gazette, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Harvard University, worked as a parent advocate at the Educational Priorities Panel, and started Class Size Matters in 2000. She regularly speaks before parent, community, and governmental groups, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NY1, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, NY1, and numerous national radio shows. In 2007 she received the John Dewey award from the United Federation of Teachers; in 2009 she was named as one of NYC’s family heroes by NYC Family Magazine; and in 2013 she was honored as an “Extraordinary Advocate for Our Children” by Advocates for Justice. In 2014, she received the “Parent Voice” award from Parents Across America, for her work on student privacy and helping to defeat inBloom Inc. In 2015, she was named one of the ten most influential leaders in the field of education technology by Tech and Learning magazine. References and publications upon request.