Frederick Hess

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on K–12 and higher education issues. He’s the author of Education Week’s iconic blog “Rick Hess Straight Up” and Education Next’s popular “Old School with Rick Hess.” Dr. Hess is also an executive editor of Education Next, a Forbes senior contributor, and a contributing editor to NationalReview. He is the founder and chairman of AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network.

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An educator, political scientist, and author, Dr. Hess has published in several scholarly outlets, such as American Politics Quarterly, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Teachers College Record, and Urban Affairs Review. His work has also appeared in popular outlets including the Atlantic, National Affairs, the Dispatch, Fox News,  the NewYork Times, USAToday, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

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His books include Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College (TeachersCollege Press, 2024), The Great School Rethink (Harvard Education Press, 2023), A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education (TeachersCollege Press, 2021), Letters to a Young Education Reformer (Harvard Education Press, 2017), The Cage-Busting Teacher (Harvard Education Press, 2015), Breakthrough Leadership in theDigital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling (Corwin, 2013), Cage-Busting Leadership (HarvardEducation Press, 2013), The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday’s Ideas (Harvard University Press, 2010), Education Unbound: The Promise andPractice of Greenfield Schooling (Association forSupervision and Curriculum Development, 2010), Common Sense School Reform (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004), Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
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Dr. Hess started his career as a high school social studies teacher. He has taught at the University of Virginia, theUniversity of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He is also the senior founding fellow of the Public Education Foundation’s Leadership Institute of Nevada.
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Dr. Hess has an MA and a PhD in government, in addition to an MEd in teaching and curriculum, from Harvard University. He also has a BA in political science from Brandeis University.