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[[Image:Torkelson.jpg|thumb|right|Tom Torkelson]]'''Tom Torkelson ''' is the founder and CEO of IDEA Public Schools, a charteroperator originally founded as IDEA Academy by Torkelson in 2000. At thetime, he was “Texas’ youngest-ever charter school founder.” Torkelsonserved as IDEA’s first board president and founding principal. Prior tofounding IDEA, Torkelson worked for Teach for America in Donna, Texas,from 1997 to 2000, teaching fourth grade.<ref name="lead">IDEA Public Schools, [https://www.ideapublicschools.org/our-story/leadership/tom-torkelson Leadership: Tom Torkelson], accessed September 26, 2018.</ref>
Torkelson “has been widely recognized in a variety of publications,including being featured in 2009 by Time magazine as Wendy Kopp’s pickfor the 100 most influential global citizens.” He received the 2009 PeterJennings Award for Civic Leadership, the 2008 Freddy Fender HumanitarianAward, and was named the University of Michigan Ross Business School’s2010 Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Torkelson has a degree in economics from Georgetown. He was amember of Broad Academy from 2015 to 2016 and currently serves on the Broad Center’s AlumniAdvisory Board.<ref name="lead"/><ref>The Broad Center, [https://www.broadcenter.org/alumni/directory/profile/tom-torkelson/ Tom Torkelson], accessed September 26, 2018.</ref><ref>The Broad Center, [https://www.broadcenter.org/about/our-team/alumni-advisory-board/ Alumni Advisory Board], accessed September 26, 2018.</ref>
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==Education Reform Efforts and Ties==
The Walton Family Foundation has made multi-year funding commitments to IDEA Public Schools. TheWalton Family Foundation has supported school privatization and given millions of dollars to supportcharter schools throughout the U.S. over the last two decades. Other pro-education reform donors toIDEA include the Broad Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charter School GrowthFund, Choose to Succeed, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Michael and Susan Dell
Foundation.<ref>IDEA Public Schools, [https://www.ideapublicschools.org/support-idea/our-donors Our Donors], accessed September 26, 2018.</ref><ref>Valerie Strauss, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/03/17/the-walmartization-of-public-education/?utm_term=.5e14a0b5cc69 The ‘Walmartization’ of public education], "Washington Post", March 17, 2016.</ref><ref>Max Brantley, [https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2017/12/18/public-school-takeover-watch-the-waltons-designs-on-kansas-city Public school takeover watch: The Waltons' designs on Kansas City], "Arkansas Times", December 18, 2017.</ref>
way to guarantee a continued college acceptance rate of 100% for exiting seniors.”<ref name="mac">Erin McIntyre, [https://www.educationdive.com/news/idea-public-schools-reports-success-amid-questions-around-data-reporting/408616/ IDEA Public Schools reports success amid questions around data reporting], "Education Drive", November 5, 2015.</ref>
Furthermore, in May 2017, IDEA provided data to the ''Washington Post '' that placed two IDEA schools in
its top 10 ranking of the best, most challenging schools, but Torkelson responded one month later that
the data provided was incorrect, dropping IDEA’s ranking into the top 25 and claiming that the data