Speaker biographies

Susan Fuhrman is the president of Teachers College at Columbia University. She is also chair of the management committee of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Ms. Fuhrman has written widely on education policy and finance; among her edited books are The Public Schools (with Marvin Lazerson, Oxford University Press, 2005), Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education (with Richard Elmore, Teachers College Press, 2004), From the Capitol to the Classroom: Standards-Based Reform in the States (National Society for the Study of Education, 2001), and Rewards and Reform: Creating Educational Incentives that Work (with Jennifer O’Day, Jossey-Bass, 1996). She is on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Coca-Cola Council for Corporate and School Partnerships. Ms. Fuhrman is also a member of the National Academy of Education, a former vice president of the American Educational Research Association, and a non-executive director of Pearson, the international education and publishing company.

Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at AEI. His many books include No Remedy Left Behind (AEI Press, 2007), No Child Left Behind: A Primer (Peter Lang 2006), Educational Entrepreneurship (Harvard Education Press, 2006), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings Institution, 2002), and Spinning Wheels (Brookings Institution, 1998). His most recent book is When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy (Harvard Education Press, 2008). Mr. Hess’s work has appeared in outlets such as Harvard Educational Review, Urban Affairs Review, Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Education Week, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Next, Educational Leadership, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and National Review. Mr. Hess currently serves on the review board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, as executive editor of Education Next, and as a member of the research advisory board for the National Center on Educational Accountability. He is a former high school social studies teacher and a former professor of education and government at the University of Virginia.

James Kohlmoos is the president and CEO of Knowledge Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit trade association in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the effective use of research-based knowledge in education policy and practice. He leads a national advocacy effort to expand support for evidence-based education and knowledge-based solutions in school improvement. Prior to joining Knowledge Alliance in 2001, Mr. Kohlmoos was a vice president of Implementation Group, where, over two years, he built an extensive bipartisan government relations practice in elementary and secondary education. From 1993 to 2000, he was a deputy assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education and a senior adviser and special assistant at the U.S. Education Department. He also served on the presidential transition team in 1992. From 1977 to 1993, he worked at the Close Up Foundation, first as an instructor and director, and then as vice president. Mr. Kohlmoos began his career in education in 1971 with the U.S. Teacher Corps in Salinas, California, and afterward served three years as a teacher trainer with the Peace Corps in Malaysia.

Gerald E. Sroufe is a senior advisor and director of government relations at the American Educational Research Association (AERA). His primary responsibility is to advocate for AERA’s policies and assist the executive director and council in identifying new areas of potential concern to the research community and formulating new policy. Mr. Sroufe has been director of government relations at AERA since 1988. Since then, he has edited Research Policy Notes, a monthly newsletter on education research issues, and represented AERA in policy and research forums. Mr. Sroufe has also served at times as AERA’s interim executive director, interim director of publications, and administrative officer of the National Council on Education Measurement. He is a codirector of the AERA Grants Board and serves on the boards of a number of Washington-based associations. Mr. Sroufe’s current research focuses on issues in research and evaluation methodology and the federal politics of education. He is writing a monograph on the use of multiple methods in the context of randomized field trials.

Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst was appointed in 2002 to a six-year term as the first director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The institute includes the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, the National Center for Education Research, and the National Center for Special Education Research. Mr. Whitehurst previously served as assistant secretary of education for educational research and improvement. Prior to beginning his federal service, he was a leading professor of psychology and pediatrics and chairman of the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. During his academic career, Mr. Whitehurst published five books and more than a hundred research papers on language and reading readiness in children. He developed programs for enhancing children’s language development that are widely used in preschool programs in the United States and other countries.

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