Oct. 9, 2015
"I don't think you could have achieved those reforms without people who fell on their swords and created opportunity for folks like Henderson to come in and really rebuild a lot of the bridges that have been burned," says Melissa Tooley, a senior education policy analyst at New America, a Washington-based think tank. "You need someone who is willing to almost be a little bit deaf to the pushback in order to get you over that tipping point."