GSE Student Named to TIME’s 100 List

May 5, 2010 - TIME magazine named Deborah Gist, to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The full TIME 100 list and related tributes appear in the May 10 issue of TIME, available at time.com.

A student in Penn GSE’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Gist was named Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education in July 2009.

Gist, who taught and served directly in schools for more than a decade early in her career, captured national attention this spring when one Rhode Island superintendent fired the entire faculty of Central Falls Senior High School as the first step in a turnaround plan for the school.

Central Falls High had earlier been identified as one of the persistently lowest-achieving schools in the state, according to procedures outlined by the U.S. Department of Education. At the time, Gist observed, that “while there are great teachers in every school in Rhode Island, these schools have struggled to provide a high-quality education. The time has come to act more decisively and comprehensively. Our students and their families deserve access to the very best education system.”

Before her appointment as Rhode Island’s education commissioner, Grist served served as State Superintendent of Education in the District of Columbia, where she created progressive educator-certification polices for teachers and school administrators and enacted new standards for teacher-preparation programs.

Gist began her career as a teacher in the Ft. Worth, Texas, elementary schools and later taught in Tampa. In both Texas and Florida, she won “Teacher of the Year” honors at the schools where she taught. In addition to spending 10 years serving directly in schools, Gist was a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Education.

She earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; a master’s degree in elementary education, with an emphasis in curriculum, from the University of South Florida; and a bachelor of science degree in early-childhood education from the University of Oklahoma and. In 2008, she completed a fellowship with the Broad Academy for Superintendents, which prepares talented leaders to take on executive leadership roles in urban education.


Media contact: Jill DiSanto-Haines at 215-898-4820 or jdisanto@upenn.edu