[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

United States
Thirty-somethings
Nov 13th 2009
Three youngsters to watch in 2010
If it is bliss to be alive in the dawn of the Obama age, then to be young is sheer heaven. The president, of
course, has set the tone himself: only 47 when he was sworn in, he is the fifth-youngest of the 43 men to
have held his office. And relative youth is one of the hallmarks of the new administration. The president’s
inner team includes a fair few people who are as young as or younger than he. There is Timothy Geithner, the
treasury secretary (now 48, like Mr Obama), his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (50 in November 2009), and
Peter Orszag, head of the office of management and budget, who is a mere 40.
A Rhee education...
But the cult of youth is flourishing far beyond the walls of the White House. Some of the most interesting
figures in public life have not even notched up the big four-oh. So here is an unscientific selection of three
thirty-somethings The Economist’s United States team will be keeping an eye on in 2010.
First on our list is Michelle Rhee, the feisty head of the notoriously union-plagued school district of
Washington, DC. Ms Rhee, aged 39, was appointed to her job in 2007, having a decade earlier (at 27) set up
the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organisation that works with some of America’s poorest school districts
to recruit and train teachers.
The project now operates in 28 states, and has recruited more than 30,000 teachers. Washington, DC, has
some of the country’s worst-performing schools, and Ms Rhee has been battling with teachers’ unions to end
cosy job-tenure practices that allow bad teachers to be almost immovable. “We have to move out of the idea
that a teaching job is a right...and unless you can show you are doing positive things for kids, you cannot
have the privilege of teaching,” she told the Washington Post in September.
...a rising Ryan...
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