Hess, Frederick

Frederick (Rick) Hess has been one of America’s most notable conservative education thinkers of the twenty-first century. His work stretches across federal, state, and local education policy and politics, teacher and leader preparation, school governance, accountability, innovation and entrepreneurship, technology, civics and social studies, and a host of other education-related issues. He has been a researcher, commentator, editor, speaker, consultant, convener, and teacher. The author or editor of more than 35 books, dozens of journal articles, and thousands of opinion columns and magazine articles, he has straddled the worlds of academic research and popular commentary. Starting with his first book, Spinning Wheels (Brookings, 1998), he has challenged the education system to care as much about the how of educational improvement as it does the what of the particular policies that are being advanced. He has argued that prosaic details, incentives, politics, norms, cultures, and attitudes are key to understanding if and how policies will work. He has also been a strong voice for entrepreneurship, and for policy creating space for problem-solvers to have more freedom in the education system.