Paul Peterson

Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government (FAS)
Director
Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG)
Office Address
Taubman-306
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 101
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-495-8312
Email: Paul_Peterson@ksg.harvard.edu
Paul Peterson

Profile

Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University and Editor in Chief of Education Next, a journal of opinion and research on education policy. He is a former Director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and of the Governmental Studies program at the Brookings Institution. Peterson is the author or editor of more than 100 articles and 22 books. After receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago, he was a professor for many years there in the Departments of Political Science and Education. Peterson chaired the Social Science Research Councils Committee on the Urban Underclass and has served on many committees of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the German Marshall Foundation, and the Center for Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Most recently he was awarded the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation prize for Distinguished Scholarship, part of its Excellence in Education award program. He has also been appointed to a Department of Education independent review panel to advise the agency in evaluating the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

Courses

Fall

  • HLE-348 The Political Economy of the School
  • HLE-347 The Politics of American Education

Media Expertise

Paul Peterson welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.

Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journals
    • Peterson, Paul E., and Frederick Hess. "Few States Set World-Class Standards: In Fact, Most Render the Notion of Proficiency Meaningless." Education Next 8.3 (Summer 2008): 70-73.
    • Howell, William G., Martin R. West, and Paul E. Peterson. "The 2008 Education Next-PEPG Survey of Public Opinion: Americans Think Less of Their Schools Than of their Police Departments and Post Offices." Education Next 8.4 (Fall 2008): 12-26.
    • Peterson, Paul E. "School Vouchers in the United States: Productivity in the Public and Private Sectors." Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft - Journal of Educational Science, ZfE 11.2 (2008): 253-267.
  • Book Chapters
    • Peterson, Paul E. "Education." Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation. Ed. Peter H. Schuck and James Q. Wilson. Public Affairs, 2008.
  • Edited Volumes
    • Chakrabarti, Rajashri, and Paul E. Peterson, eds. School Choice International. MIT Press, 2008.
  • Research Papers/Reports
    • Peterson, Paul E., and Matthew M. Chingos. "Impact of For-Profit and Non-Profit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Experiment." Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance PEPG08-11, May 2008.