Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Difference between revisions
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*[http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/library/library_author.php?A=10 Listing of articles by Andrea Batista Schlesinger] |
*[http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/library/library_author.php?A=10 Listing of articles by Andrea Batista Schlesinger] |
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*[http://drummajorinstitute.org/library/article.php?ID=6301 New York Times interview with Andrea Batista Schlesinger] |
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*[http://feministing.com/archives/005983.html Interview with Andrea by Feministing] |
*[http://feministing.com/archives/005983.html Interview with Andrea by Feministing] |
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Revision as of 15:31, 7 June 2007
Andrea Batista Schlesinger is currently the Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute[1], an American progressive public policy institute founded during the Civil Rights Movement. Its primary focus is on the economic issues of the middle class, and the idea that government can be a force for good. Andrea has led the Drum Major Institute since 2002.
Background
Andrea studied public policy at the University of Chicago, and has worked in various capacities to promote educational equity and youth empowerment. She directed a national campaign to engage college students in the discussion on the future of Social Security for the Pew Charitable Trusts, and served as Director of Public Relations of Teach For America before working as the education advisor to Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer.
Since 2002, Andrea Batista Schlesinger has led the effort to turn the Drum Major Institute, originally founded by an advisor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, into a progressive policy institute with national impact. Under Andrea's leadership as Executive Director, DMI has released several important policy papers to national audiences including: Congress at the Midterm: Their Middle-Class Record [2] and Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class [3].
Andrea has been profiled in the New York Times, New Yorker magazine, Latina Magazine and in Hear us Now, an award-winning documentary about her tenure as the student member of the New York City Board of Education. Andrea has also appeared on the Lou Dobbs Tonight Show on CNN, sits on the Board of Directors of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, an educational program fostering leadership and activism in young women in New York public schools, and is on the Advisory Board for the Community Research Council in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Publications
Andrea has been published in New York Newsday, Crains New York Business, The Mississippi Sun Herald, New York Daily News, Alternet.com, Tom Paine.com, New York Sun, Colorlines Magazine, The Chief-Leader, and City Limits Magazine. She is also a contributor to The Huffington Post and is on the Editorial Board at The Nation.
Article Links
Success Itself, Not Money, Is a Begetter of Happiness[4], The Wall Street Journal
Pro-Immigrant Populism[5], The Nation
Why Mike should keep his tax cut[6], New York Daily News
Dobbs the deamagogue[7], New York Daily News
Bush's skewed sense of sacrifice[[8]], New York Daily News
The Christmas present working Americans deserve[[9]], New York Daily News
Immigration raid an 'economic dead end'[10], Chicago Sun-Times
Now, let's really talk about Kerry's joke[11], New York Daily News
How civic education died-and why we need it back[12], New York Daily News
Middle Class Isn't Middle Ground[13], Tompaine.com
Other Ways to Help The Middle Class[14], Crain's New York Business
Bankruptcy Act will kick many Katrina victims while they're down[15], Sun Herald
Accomplishments
Andrea has drawn national attention to the plight of the current and aspiring middle class trying to access the American Dream. For the third year straight, DMI released a nationally-recognized scorecard grading each member of Congress's voting record on legislation important to the current and aspiring middle class. To bring this information into the hands of the people impacted, DMI ran a Google ad campaign highlighting each member’s grade. The ads have been viewed over 20 million times – in a strategy now widely copied. In media outlets from CNN and NPR to her regular opinion pieces in the Daily News, Andrea is turned to for her fresh and forward-thinking analysis on American’s greatest challenges.
Andrea’s achievements at DMI include doubling the Institute’s staff, capacity and budget, launching a national program to connect college students from under-represented populations to careers in policy, producing the only progressive analysis of the immigration debate addressing the concerns of the squeezed middle-class, expanding the Marketplace of Ideas series, which highlights successful progressive policymakers from across the country, and launching a policy blog that reaches several thousand readers each day.
She has received much recognition for her work, including:
- Awarded “40 under 40 Rising Star” by Crain's New York Business.
- Named “35 under 40 Rising Star, The Next Generation of Political Leaders in New York” by City Hall Newspaper.
- Recipient of LatinaPAC’s Dolores Huerta Award for “making great strides in promoting progress in our community.”
- Named “Expert of the Week” by the White House Project’s SheSource program; a project promoting to the best women policy experts to television and radio.