Paul E. Peterson
Senior Fellow
Member, K–12 Education Task Force

Expertise: Education policy, federalism, urban politics

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Paul E. Peterson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task force on K–12 Education.

Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. Peterson is also editor in chief of Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research.

His research interests include educational policy, federalism, and urban policy. Some of his current research efforts include evaluating the effectiveness of school reform plans around the country.

In 2006, Peterson was appointed leader of the Florida state Education Citizen Review Group and is a member of the Department of Education’s independent review panel, which is evaluating No Child Left Behind. In 2003, he was awarded the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Prize for Distinguished Scholarship. Among the many other honors and fellowships Peterson has received are a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a German Marshall Fund of the United States Fellowship, and a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award from the American Political Science Association for the best book published in politics, government, or international relations. 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 is a former director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution and has been elected to the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is an author or editor of numerous books and studies, including School Money Trials: The Legal Pursuit of Educational Adequacy; The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools; Reforming Education in Florida: A Study Prepared by the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education; Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap; and Choice and Competition in American Education. Other titles include The New American Democracy; The Price of Federalism; Welfare Magnets; and City Limits. He coedited The New Direction in American Politics and Can the Government Govern?

A political scientist by training, Peterson has taught at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of Washington, and the University of Illinois.