A number of education policy experts contribute to the Quick and the Ed, including Education Sector’s policy and communications teams, and K–20 Task Force. Read about all of our bloggers below.
Ch ad Aldeman is a senior policy analyst at Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. He joins the Bellwether team after a year-plus at the U.S. Department of Education as a policy adviser in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, where he worked on teacher policy and secondary schools. A few years ago, Aldeman was a popular Q&E blogger as an ES staffer and is once again sharing his thoughtful analysis on the most important K-12 and higher education policy issues. Follow Aldeman’s posts here. |
 Kris Amundson,Education Sector’s director of strategic communications, has extensive experience both as a communicator and as a policymaker. Amundson represented the 44th District in Virginia’s General Assembly from 1999 to 2009. She also served for nearly a decade on the Fairfax County, Va., School Board, including two years as its chairwoman. On the Q&E, you’ll often find her blogging about the politics of education, accountability, school governance issues, and all things Virginia. Follow Amundson’s posts here. |
 John E. Chubb is the interim CEO of Education Sector. Most recently the founder and CEO of Leeds Global Partners, LLC, Dr. Chubb was also founder, senior executive vice president and chief education officer of EdisonLearning. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including his newest, The Best Teachers in the World: Why We Don’t Have Them and How We Could (EdNext Books, 2012). His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Education Next, The Public Interest, and The American Political Science Review, among other publications. Follow Chubb’s posts here. |
 Constance (Connie) Clark is a policy analyst at Education Sector. She previously worked at the Council for Aid to Education as a reporting and data analysis program associate, assisting with data collection, editing, and reporting on participating institutions of the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Clark focuses on charters schools and choice, and specifically, the impact of choice on school integration. Follow Clark’s posts here. |
 Peter W. Cookson Jr., is a member of Education Sector’s K20 Task Force. A writer and sociologist, Cookson is currently president of Ideas without Borders, a Washington, D.C. consulting firm specializing in 21st century education innovation and human rights. His knowledge of schools and education comes from a lifetime of teaching, researching, and working to improve the quality of education for all children. Cookson teaches in the Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis at Teachers College, Columbia University. He was the founder of The Center of Educational Outreach and Innovation and TC Innovations at Teachers College. Follow Cookson’s posts here. |
 Thomas Dawson is member of the Education Sector K20 Task Force and executive director of product management for Laureate Education. Prior to joining Laureate, Dawson served as senior program officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the foundation’s postsecondary success strategy practice. Dawson also served in a variety of positions at the U.S. Department of Education, including deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs, where he oversaw the department’s grants to colleges and universities and its college accreditation office. Follow Dawson’s posts here. |
 Joni Finney, Ph.D. is a member of the Education Sector K20 Task Force. She is currently the director of the Institute for Research in Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. For more than two decades, Finney has worked with state leaders to improve the public policies that govern higher education. She co-authored Financing Higher Education in an Era of Global Challenge (Harvard Education Press, 2012). Follow Finney’s posts here. |
 Andrew Gillen is the research director at Education Sector, where he is responsible for conducting and overseeing the organization’s research projects. Gillen focuses on college costs and financial aid, accreditation, and the economics of higher education. Follow Gillen’s posts here. |
 Susan Headden, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is senior writer/editor at Education Sector. Headden has extensive experience in editing, investigative journalism, and education writing. Her most recent writing concentrates on issues surrounding the Common Core State Standards and assessments, college remediation, and teacher evaluation. Follow Headden’s posts here. |
 Sara Mead is a member of the Education Sector K20 Task Force and a principal with Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. At Bellwether, she writes and conducts policy analysis on issues related to early childhood education and K-12 education reform and provides strategic advising support to clients serving high-need students. Follow Mead’s posts here. |
 Sarah Rosenberg is a policy analyst at Education Sector. Her writing focuses on teacher quality, public employee pensions, school improvement, and rural education issues. Rosenberg previously taught high school English in rural North Carolina as a Teach For America corps member. Follow Rosenberg’s posts here. |
 Jeff Selingo, a member of the Education Sector K20 Task Force, is editor at large of The Chronicle of Higher Education. He has spent the past 15 years immersed in higher education reporting and editing, and has been a featured speaker before dozens of national higher-education groups and appears regularly on regional and national radio and television programs, including NPR, PBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CBS. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He writes a regular blog and column for The Chronicle and The Huffington Post where he explores innovation in higher education. Selingo is also the author of the forthcoming book College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students. Follow Selingo’s posts here. |
 Ben Wildavsky, a member of the Education Sector K20 Task Force, is a senior scholar at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World, and co-editor of Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation. Prior to joining Kauffman, Wildavsky was education editor of U.S. News & World Report, where he was the top editor of America’s Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools. His writing also has appeared in the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, and many other publications. He is also a guest blogger for The Chronicle of Higher Education’s. Follow Wildavsky’s posts here. |
 Mandy Zatynski is a writer at Education Sector. On the Q&E, Zatynski writes about issues pertaining to community colleges, workforce development, and degree completion. You’ll also see her daily round-up of top, sometimes quirky, education news in Quick Hits. Previously, Zatynski worked as an education reporter for small, daily newspapers, and served as an ELL teacher in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. Follow Zatynski’s posts here. |
Chad Aldeman 
Kristen Amundson 
John E. Chubb 
Constance Clark 
Peter Cookson Jr. 
Thomas Dawson 
Joni Finney 
Andrew Gillen 
Sarah Rosenberg 
Jeff Selingo 
Ben Wildavsky 
Mandy Zatynski 
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3/21/2013 | Andrew Gillen discusses net tuition and MOOCs with Kevin O’Neill on