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Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Education Opinion

Introducing Your Special Guest Stars: Plucker, Snowden, Lake, and Kelly

By Rick Hess — March 30, 2012 2 min read
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Hi folks. So I’m about to take one of my blog breaks as I start to approach crunch time on my upcoming book on cage-busting leadership. (For a quick intro to what the book holds, see my blog post on it here.) Fortunately, I’m once again psyched to offer up a stellar array of contributors to step in for the next four weeks.

First up, next week, is Jonathan Plucker. Jonathan is a professor of educational psychology and cognitive science at Indiana University as well as the director of IU’s massive Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. He’s an expert on gifted education, has looked closely at China’s educational system, and received the National Association of Gifted Children’s 2007 E. Paul Torrance Award for creativity research. His books include Essentials of Creativity Assessment and Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education. He’s got much to say on research, gifted education, and evaluation, and I think you’ll find him as thoughtful as I do.

Next up, the week of April 9, is Chapman Snowden. I first met Chap through 4.0 Schools, Matt Candler’s enterprise designed to nurture new school models and education businesses in the southeastern U.S. Chap is an innovator in training at 4.0 and the founder of Kinobi Corporation, a web-based coaching service that helps prepare teachers to effectively manage disruptive student behavior. A UVA alum who previously worked as a program manager at Mass Insight’s school turnaround group and as a portfolio analyst at New Profit, I think you’ll find Chap has loads to say on ed tech and the challenges of being an education start-up.

The week of April 16 we’ll have my pal Robin Lake. The newly appointed director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the University of Washington, Robin is the heir to Paul Hill’s throne. Robin has worked at CRPE for years as associate director and research associate and directs CPRE’s National Charter School Research Project. She’s a national leader on a number of key issues, including charter schooling, portfolio school districts, school turnarounds, and performance-based accountability systems. She’s the author of Unique Schools Serving Unique Students: Charter Schools and Children with Special Needs.

Finally, the week of April 23, we turn to my ridiculously gifted colleague Andrew Kelly. Andrew is a research fellow here at AEI where he focuses primarily on higher education issues. He’s one of the most creative writers in higher education (see here and here), as well as a UC-Berkeley trained political scientist with a deep understanding of polling, elections, and legislative behavior. He was my coeditor on the new book Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit and also the coeditor of Reinventing Higher Education. He’s whip-smart and perhaps just a touch cantankerous. I’m comfortable predicting that it’ll make for fun-filled reading.

Enjoy! And I’ll see you in May.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.