Dan Madzelan, Department of Education

We have good news at the Education Industry Investment Forum. I spoke with Dan Madzelan, Acting Assistant Secretary Post Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and he has agreed to speak as one of our keynote speakers at the forum in March.

This is great. It means we have voices from government, voices from accreditation agencies, for-profit colleges, universities and K12 charter schools, and private equity investors from around the world to take part.

Dan will be speaking about the role that community, government and business / investors can play in making American education world class.

Over the course of the few weeks I have been traveling around North America, it's become clear that everyone is talking about boosting American education.

They want to see private, public and community options for helping boost completion rates, monitor quality in education and improving placement rates in colleges beyond k12.

I think this forum will go a long way to furthering this conversation and it will do so on a city, state and federal level. And it will reach through the spectrum of community colleges, traditional higher ed and for-profit K12 and post secondary schools.

I am talking to one other person who will serve as a keynote during the three days, but I will keep his name under wraps for now till everything is confirmed. If he does accept then we are looking at a pretty explosive and debate-worthy forum in 2010.