If education secretary Arne Duncan is a T-Mobile user, he let us know who in the lobbying world belongs in his “Fave 5".

And they are...

Anne Bryant, the executive director of the National School Boards Association;
Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools;
Mary Kusler, assistant director for advocacy and policy for the American Association of School Administrators;
Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers; and,
Molly Broad, the president of the American Council on Education.

Duncan singled out this lobbying quintet out in a conference call to about 500 people from education organizations on Wednesday, when he spent a few minutes updating them on the status of the stimulus package. He thanked them by name for all of their hard work as the stimulus package was being developed.

Wilhoit and Bryant, incidentally, joined Duncan during his tour earlier this week of Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., where he tried to drum up support for school construction funding in the stimulus package.