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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 11, 2007

Frederick M. Hess, AEI’s director of education policy studies, and Henry Olsen, director of AEI’s National Research Initiative, announced today the launch of a new AEI research effort to discover and promote original empirical work on K-12 school reform.

Codirected by Hess and Olsen, this education research project will encompass a wide range of important issues including federal education policy (such as No Child Left Behind), school governance, choice-based reform (such as vouchers, charter schools and tax incentives), school and district leadership, and teacher quality.

At the heart of this education research project is a working group consisting of twenty leading reform-minded U.S. researchers and educators. Trained in a variety of disciplines and approaching the challenges of K-12 reform from a range of perspectives, the working group will convene semiannually to suggest new lines of research, and to establish a respected forum for discussion of all new provocative K-12 education reform issues. The goal of the Future of American Education working group will be, not simply to rehash familiar arguments or to repackage previously published work, but to influence and encourage the national education debate for years to come. Its first meeting will convene at AEI on December 12, 2007.

“This stellar group of academics and reformers will not only help draw attention to significant yet unpublicized education research,” said Hess, “but they will ask unique questions and pursue new inquiries that will help steer the country toward innovative school reform.”

Future of American Education Working Group Codirectors

• Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies, AEI
• Henry Olsen, Vice President and Director, AEI’s National Research Initiative

Working Group Members

• Dominic J. Brewer, University of Southern California
• Thomas S. Dee, Swarthmore College
• Michael Feinberg, Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP)
• Jennifer de Forest, Foundations, and Policy, University of Virginia
• Dan Goldhaber, University of Washington
• Jay P. Greene, University of Arkansas
• Brian A. Jacob, University of Michigan
• Thomas Kane, Harvard University
• Susanna Loeb, Stanford University
• Bridget Terry Long, Harvard University
• Rob Reich, Stanford University
• Michelle A. Rhee, District of Columbia Public Schools
• Stefanie Sanford, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Jon Schnur, New Leaders for New Schools
• Kim Smith, NewSchools Venture Fund
• Christopher Swanson, Editorial Projects in Education
• Rajiv Vinnakota, The SEED Foundation
• Martin West, Brown University
• Patrick Wolf, University of Arkansas

Additional information about AEI’s Future of American Education project can be found at www.aei.org/futureofeducation, or by contacting either Henry Olsen at holsen@aei.org or 202.828.6024, or Frederick M. Hess at rhess@aei.org or 202.828.6030.

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