You may never have heard of Amy Wilkins, but she played a major role in the Florida public school system's recent changes in standards of student achievement.Wilkins started out as a community organizer and former worker with the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), and is now VP for an education nonprofit with ties to former CDF personnel. The grandniece of civil rights icon and NAACP president Roy Wilkins has done a 180-degree turn from pushing unreasonably high benchmarks for evaluating schools based on testing outcomes [No Child Left Behind in 2002] to recently setting the guidelines for the state of Florida's new separation of standards according to subgroups including black, Latino, and special needs. Amy's pedigree has made her one of the most influential education lobbyists in Washington. In 2001 she broke with black leaders and became one of the few liberals to back tougher testing standards for all students in low-performing schools. The liberal Brookings Institution in 2001...(Read Full Post)