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
Assistant
Antonio Wendland (617-495-7976)
Paul Peterson

Profile

Paul E. Petersonis the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government andDirector of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at HarvardUniversity, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at StanfordUniversity, and Editor-In-Chief of Education Next, a journal of opinion and research.

Petersonis a former director of the Center for American Political Studies atHarvard University and of the Governmental Studies Program at theBrookings Institution. He received his Ph. D. in political science fromthe University of Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy ofArts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education, and hasreceived fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the GermanMarshall Foundation, and the Center for Study in the BehavioralSciences.

He is the author of the forthcoming book, Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning (Harvard University Press, 2010).

He is also the author or editor of numerous other publications including the following:

  • School Choice International: Exploring public private partnerships (co-editor with Rajashri Chakrabarti)
  • School Money Trials: The Legal Pursuit of Educational Adequacy (co-editor with Martin R. West)
  • Reforming Education in Florida: A Study Prepared by the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education (editor)
  • The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools (with William G. Howell)
  • Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap (editor)
  • No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability (co-editor with Martin R. West)
  • The Future of School Choice (editor)
  • Our Schools and our Future (editor)
  • City Limits
  • The Urban Underclass (co-edited with Christopher Jencks)
  • Price of Federalism
  • Welfare Magnets (with Mark C. Rom)
  • The New American Democracy (with Morris P. Fiorina, Bertram Johnson, and William G. Mayer)

Three of his books have received major awards from the American Political Science Association.

Petersonis a member of the independent review panel advising the Department ofEducations evaluation of the No Child Left Behind law and a member ofthe Hoover Institutions Koret Task Force of K-12 Education at StanfordUniversity. The Editorial Projects in Education Research Centerreported that Petersons studies on school choice and vouchers wereamong the countrys most influential studies of education policy.

Courses

Fall

  • HLE-347 Politics, Policy Making and Political Action in Education

Not Offered

  • HLE-348 The Political Economy of the School

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 Daniel Nadler. "What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification? We Get More Minority Teachers and Test Scores Rise." Education Next 9.1 (Winter 2009).
  • Magazine and Newspaper Articles
    • Peterson, Paul E., and Daniel Nadler. "What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification?: We Get More Minority Teachers and Test Scores Rise." Education Digest. September 2009, 57-60.
  • Op-Eds
    • Peterson, Paul E. "Health Lessons from Schools." New York Post, September 3, 2009.
    • Peterson, Paul E. "What the Public Thinks of Public Schools." Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2009.
  • 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.