An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies K-12 and higher education issues. His books include "Cage-Busting Leadership," "The Same Thing Over and Over," "Education Unbound," "Common Sense School Reform," "Revolution at the Margins," and "Spinning Wheels." He is also the author of the popular Education Week blog, "Rick Hess Straight Up." Hess's work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, school costs and productivity, the impact of education research, and No Child Left Behind.  Hess serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, and on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government, as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum, from Harvard University.

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Assistant Info

Michael Q. McShane is a research fellow in education policy studies at AEI and concurrently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. While obtaining a master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program, he taught ninth and tenth grade English and religion studies at St. Jude Educational Institute in Montgomery, Alabama where he was also the assistant baseball coach. His first book, "President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political" (co-authored with Robert Maranto), was published by Palgrave Macmillan in September 2012.  At AEI, McShane will be working on federal education policy, and the politics of education reform (including school choice, and Common Core standards).