Mark Schneider was Director of the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) from 2018 to 2024. He instituted important reforms to make education research more scientific and practical, while struggling with the increasingly politicized environment around education and the challenges of changing the culture of federal bureaucracy. In this conversation, moderated by LBJ professor Paul Von Hippel, Schneider will talk about his career, the history of IES, the potential and challenges facing education research and implementation, and the origins and implications of overhauling the Department of Education.
Dinner and refreshments will be available.
About the Speaker
Mark Schneider is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his work focuses on education research and development and higher education administration. He is concurrently a distinguished professor emeritus at Stony Brook University. Before joining AEI, Dr. Schneider was the director of the Institute of Education Sciences, a vice president and institute fellow at the American Institutes for Research, and the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.
He has been published widely in scholarly outlets, including in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Public Administration Review. His work has also appeared in the popular press, including in the Wall Street Journal, The 74, Education Week, The Hill, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Education Next.
Additionally, Dr. Schneider has written and edited a number of books: Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools (with Paul Teske and Melissa Marschall, 2021); The University Next Door: What Is a Comprehensive University, Who Does It Educate, and Can It Survive? (with KC Deane, 2015); Getting to Graduation: The Completion Agenda in Higher Education (with Andrew Kelly, 2012); Public Entrepreneurs: Agents for Change in American Government (with Paul Teske and Michael Mintrom, 2011); Accountability in American Higher Education (with Kevin Carey, 2010); and Charter Schools: Hope or Hype? (with Jack Buckley, 2007).
Dr. Schneider has a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College.