Three years ago, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse — the opportunity to serve in the Obama Administration, helping my education heroes communicate their message. So we loaded our stuff on a moving truck and headed to D.C.
In the years since, we’ve done a few things other than just work. Got married. Had a daughter who’s the love of our lives. Gotten to spend lots of good time with now-Granny Li. Made friendships I expect and hope to keep for the rest of our lives.
Now it’s time to head back. This time, it was Rachel who got the call with the offer she couldn’t refuse.
Serving in the Obama administration, as communications director and Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education, has been the professional honor of my life, and departing is deeply bittersweet. The sweet part is the reason – an invitation for Rachel to join the education team at IDEO in San Francisco, the leading innovation design firm in the country. And as I read in the Onion, I’m not the only one in this administration moving so a spouse can take a great job.
We’ll be returning to our house in Oakland after some vacation. Once there, I plan to hang out my shingle as a communications and policy strategist and writer, working for clients committed to causes that matter.
We will miss Granny Li and our Washington friends and colleagues enormously, but hope and trust that everybody will either visit often or just move to California.
Jonathan Schorr 