Conventional wisdom downplays student progress and laments increasing achievement gaps between the have and have-nots. But as of 2017, steady growth was evident in reading and especially in math. While the seismic disruptions to young people’s development and education due to the Covid-19 pandemic have placed schools and communities in distress, the successes of the past may give educators confidence that today’s challenges can be overcome.

Senior Fellow Paul E. Peterson writing with M. Danish Shakeel

Education Next, Summer 2022

The preparation of those young people for citizenship is the ultimate reason we send them to school in the first place. It’s not just to teach them the Three R’s, important as that is, or to expose them to chemistry or poetry or computer programming. We educate kids in many ways and for many reasons. But none matters more in the long run that their readiness to participate in sustaining the vitality and integrity of our democratic republic.

Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Flypaper, a publication of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, September 1, 2022

Vibrant, high-quality instructional materials can promote active student engagement, as can dropping the boundaries between schools and their communities. Coupling academic learning and exposure to people working on real-world problems can deepen student thinking and open possibilities for further learning.

Distinguished Research Fellow Margaret (Macke) Raymond

How to Improve Our Schools in the Post-COVID Era, a volume of the Hoover Education Success Initiative, May 2021

William Damon

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

William Damon is a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution and a professor of education at Stanford University.

Damon's research explores how people develop purpose and integrity in their work, family, and personal life. Damon's current work focuses on purpose among people of all ages and on high achievement and excellence across vocations. He examines how Americans can learn to become devoted citizens, purposeful achievers, and successful entrepreneurs. Damon's work has been used in professional training programs in fields such as medicine, journalism, law, and business, and in programs in grades K–12 and higher education.

One of Damon’s recent books is Failing Liberty 101 (Hoover Press, 2011). Other recent books include The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life (2008), Taking Philanthropy Seriously (2006), andA Round of Golf with my Father(2021). Damon’s earlier books include Bringing in a New Era in Character Education (Hoover Press, 2002); Greater Expectations: Overcoming the Culture of Indulgence in Our Homes and Schools (1995) (winner of the Parent’s Choice Book Award); and The Moral Child (1992).

Damon was editor in chief of The Handbook of Child Psychology, fifth and sixth editions (1998 and 2006). He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association.

Chester E. Finn Jr.

Volker Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Chester E. Finn Jr. is the Volker Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and President Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. At Hoover, he chairs the Working Group on Civics and American Citizenship within the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. He previously led Hoover’s Task Force on K-12 Education and now participates in the Hoover Education Success Initiative, as much of his career has focused on reforming primary and secondary schooling in the US. That included serving as a member of the Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland's Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, as well as Assistant US Secretary of Education and chair of the National Assessment Governing Board.

Finn led Fordham from 1997-2014, after many earlier roles in education, academe, and government, including professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, US assistant secretary of education, and legislative director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

A native of Ohio, he holds an undergraduate degree in US history, a master's degree in social studies teaching, and a doctorate in education policy, all from Harvard University.

Finn has served on numerous boards, currently including the National Council on Teacher Quality and the Core Knowledge Foundation. From 1988 to 1996, he served on the National Assessment Governing Board, including two years as its chair.

Author of over twenty books, Finn is author of Assessing the Nation's Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP, published May 2022; co-author (with Andrew Scanlan) of Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present & Future of Advanced Placement, published September 2019; and co-editor (with Michael J. Petrilli) of How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools, published February 2020. Other works include Charter Schools at the Crossroads: Predicaments, Paradoxes, Possibilities (co-authored with Bruno V. Manno and Brandon L. Wright), and Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students(co-authored with Brandon L. Wright).

Earlier books include Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools (with Jessica Hockett); Ohio's Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Frontlines (with Terry Ryan and Michael Lafferty); Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik; Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut; Leaving No Child Behind: Options for Kids in Failing Schools (co-edited with Frederick M. Hess); Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education (with Bruno V. Manno and Gregg Vanourek); and The Educated Child: A Parent's Guide from Pre-School Through Eighth Grade (with William J. Bennett and John Cribb).

He and his wife, Renu Virmani, a physician, have two grown children and three granddaughters. They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Hisresearch papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives.

Eric Hanushek

Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow in Education

Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and one of the world’s leading scholars in the economics of education. His influential research has shaped education policy globally, with widely cited studies on teacher effectiveness, school accountability, class size, and the economic returns to educational quality. In 2021, he received the Yidan Prize for Education Research, the field’s most prestigious international award.

He has authored or edited 26 books and more than 300 articles, and he serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the Society of Labor Economists and the American Educational Research Association. His public service includes roles as a commissioner on the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, chair of the National Board for Education Sciences (2008–2010), Deputy Director of the Congressional Budget Office (1983–1985), and member of the National Assessment Governing Board (2019–2023). A member of the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education, he earned his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after graduating as a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Caroline M. Hoxby

Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow (joint)

Caroline M. Hoxby is the Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow (joint) at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. She is the Scott & Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the director of the Economics of Education Program for the National Bureau of Economic Research. She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences.

Hoxby's research has received numerous awards, including a Carnegie Fellowship, a John M. Olin Fellowship, a National Tax Association Award, and a major grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. She is the recipient of the 2006 Thomas J. Fordham Prize for Distinguished Scholarship.

She has written extensively on educational choice and related issues. She is the editor ofHow the Financial Crisis and Great Recession Affected Higher Education (University of Chicago Press, 2015), The Economic Analysis of School Choice (University of Chicago Press, 2002), andCollege Choices (University of Chicago Press, 2004). Some of her published articles include "Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?" (American Economic Review, 2000), "Not All School Finance Equalizations Are Created Equal" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001), and "How Teachers' Unions Affect Education Production" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1996).

Other articles written by Hoxby include "The Effects of School Choice on Curriculum and Atmosphere" (inEarning and Learning: How Schools Matter), "The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1999), and "Evidence on Private School Vouchers: Effects on Schools and Students" (inPerformance Based Approaches to School Reform).

Hoxby, who was the subject of a feature article inThe New Yorker, has an undergraduate degree, a master's degree, and a doctorate in economics. She earned her master's degree in 1990 from the University of Oxford, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship, and her doctorate in 1994 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Terry M. Moe

Senior Fellow

Terry M. Moe was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the William Bennett Munro Professor of political science at Stanford University.

He has written extensively on the presidency and public bureaucracy as well as political institutions more generally, publishing many scholarly articles on these topics.  His most recent books areRelic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government--And Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency (with William Howell, 2016), andPresidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (with William Howell, 2020).

He has also written extensively on the politics of American education.  His most recent books areThe Politics of Institutional Reform: Katrina, Education, and the Second Face of Power (2019),The Comparative Politics of Education: Teachers Unions and Education Systems Around the World (edited with Susanne Wiborg, 2017), andSpecial Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools (2011). His prior work on education includesPolitics, Markets, and America's Schools (1990) andLiberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education (2009), both with John E. Chubb, andSchools, Vouchers, and the American Public (2001).

Paul E. Peterson

Senior Fellow

Paul E. Peterson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a member of the Hoover Education Success Initiative, which focuses on the improvement of education policy and provides public education solutions for state education and policy leaders. He is also Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he directs the Program on Education Policy and Governance and is senior editor of Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research. 

In addition to education policy, Peterson’s research interests include federalism, social capital, and charter schools. He has evaluated the effectiveness of school vouchers and other education reform initiatives, and he has identified both the closure of social and ethnic gaps over the past fifty years and growth in student performance, particularly among charter schools.

Peterson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education. He is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship;  the Woodrow Wilson Award from the American Political Science Association for the best book published in government or international relations; and the Walton Family Foundation Prize for Best Academic Paper on School Choice and Reform, awarded by the Economics and Finance Policy Association.  The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center reported that Peterson’s studies on school choice and vouchers were among the country’s most influential studies of education policy.

Peterson’s recent books includeSaving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learningand, withEric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School.

Margaret (Macke) Raymond

Distinguished Research Fellow

Margaret “Macke” Raymond has served as founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University since its inception in 1999. 

The CREDO team conducts rigorous and independent analysis and evaluation of promising programs that aim to improve outcomes for students in US K-12 public schools.  Their mantra is “We let the data speak.”  The team conducts large-scale analyses under a collaboration with 30 state education agencies. 

Macke has steered the group to be a well-regarded source of impartial insight into the performance and workings of charter schools, city reform strategies and national reform programs.  CREDO’s studies and reports are relied upon by the US Department of Education, governors, state chief school officers, state legislators, the courts, other policy makers and the media.  Supporters and opponents alike point to CREDO findings, moving the debate past evidence disputes to more substantive arguments.   

She is a regular source for local and national media, including theNew York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Timesand the Denver Post.  Macke’s deep belief in building capacity for improved analysis of programs and policy has found its place through service on advisory boards, technical resource groups and peer review panels.  She was selected as a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow in recognition of her leadership in US education policy.

In addition, Macke created a visiting “CREDO-ship” to invite promising policy analysts to visit with the team and collaborate on projects of mutual interest.  Macke and her husband Eric Hanushek live in Stanford, CA with their yellow Labrador Retriever, Sugar.

Thomas Sowell

Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Emeritus

Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Emeritus, at the Hoover Institution.

He writes on economics, history, social policy, ethnicity, and the history of ideas. His most recent book,Discrimination and Disparities (2018), gathers a wide array of empirical evidence to challenge the idea that different economic outcomes can be explained by any one factor, be it discrimination, exploitation or genetics. His books on economics include Housing Boom and Bust (2009),Intellectuals and Society (2009),Applied Economics (2009),Economic Facts and Fallacies (2008),Basic Economics (2007), andAffirmative Action Around the World (2004). Other books on economics he has written includeClassical Economics Reconsidered (1974),Say’s Law (1972), andEconomics: Analysis and Issues (1971). On social policy, he has writtenKnowledge and Decisions (1980),Preferential Policies (1989),Inside American Education (1993), The Vision of the Anointed (1995), Barbarians Inside the Gates (1999), andThe Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999). On the history of ideas he has writtenMarxism (1985) andConflict of Vision (1987). Sowell also wrote Late-Talking Children (1997). He has also written a monograph on law titledJudicial Activism Reconsidered, published by the Hoover Institution Press in 1989. His writings have also appeared in scholarly journals in economics, law, and other fields.

Sowell’s current research focuses on cultural history in a world perspective, a subject on which he began to write a trilogy in 1982. The trilogy includesRace and Culture (1994),Migrations and Cultures (1996), andConquests and Cultures (1998).

Sowell's journalistic writings include a nationally syndicated column that appears in more than 150 newspapers from Boston to Honolulu. Some of these essays have been collected in book form, most recently inEver Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays published by the Hoover Institution Press in 2006.

Over the past three decades, Sowell has taught economics at various colleges and universities, including Cornell, Amherst, and the University of California at Los Angeles, as well as the history of ideas at Brandeis University. He has also been associated with three other research centers, in addition to the Hoover Institution. He was project director at the Urban Institute, 1972-1974, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, 1976–77, and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, 1975-76.

Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 2003, Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958, his master’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Lessons learned and the status of the three-decade charter school movement.

The day before this show was recorded, Dr. Thomas Sowell began his 10th decade of life. Remarkably on one hand and yet completely expected on the other, he remains as engaged, analytical, and thoughtful as ever. In this interview (one of roughly a dozen or so we’ve conducted with Dr. Sowell over the years), we delve into his new book Charter Schools and Their Enemies,  a sobering look at the academic success of charter schools in New York City, and the fierce battles waged by teachers unions and progressive politicians to curtail them.

The Hoover Institution hosts a Fireside Chat with Secretary DeVos  and Secretary Rice on Tuesday, June 28 from 5:15 - 6:00PM PT.

Excellence, not mediocrity, provides the key to achieving greater equity in education.

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