On Wednesday, October 28, at 4:30pm, the Buckley Institute will be pleased to hold its annual K-12 education speaker series with American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Frederick Hess and EdChoice Director of National Research Michael McShane.
K-12 education in America is undergoing profound changes. Artificial intelligence is transforming the classroom, grade inflation is making it harder to know what students are actually learning, and school choice policies are expanding educational options for students. Are these developments creating new problems or new opportunities in American education?
Join the Buckley Institute for a conversation about the forces reshaping K-12 education and their implications for students, families, and schools.
Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he is the director of Education Policy Studies, and an affiliate of AEI's James Q. Wilson Program in K-12 Education Studies. Dr. Hess is the author of
Education Week's iconic blog
Rick Hess Straight Up and
Education Next's popular
Old School with Rick Hess. Dr. Hess started his career as a high school social studies teacher and has since taught at the University of Virginia, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, and Georgetown University. He is the author and editor of multiple books, including most recently
School Rethink 2.0 (Harvard Education Press, 2025) with Michael B. Horn and Juliet Squire,
Getting Education Right (Teachers College Press, 2024) with Michael McShane, and
The Great School Rethink (Harvard Education Press, 2023). He is an executive editor of
Education Next, a contributor to
National Review, and the founder and chair of AEI's Conservative Education Reform Network. Dr. Hess's work can be found in scholarly journals, including
American Politics Research and Social Science Quarterly, and popular outlets such as
The Wall Street Journal,
USA Today,
The New York Times, and
The Washington Post. He holds a PhD in politics and an MEd in teaching and curriculum from Harvard University.
Michael Q. McShane is Director of National Research at EdChoice and an adjunct fellow in Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is the author and editor of multiple books on education policy, including most recently
Getting Education Right (Teachers College Press, 2024) with Rick Hess, and
Hybrid Homeschooling: A Guide to the Future of Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). He is currently an opinion contributor to
Forbes, and his analyses and commentary have been published widely in the media, including
USA Today,
The Washington Post, and
The Wall Street Journal. He has also been featured in education-specific outlets such as
Teachers College Record,
Education Week,
Phi Delta Kappan, and
Education Next. In addition to authoring numerous white papers, McShane has had academic work published in
Education Finance and Policy,
The Handbook of Education Politics and Policy, and the
Journal of School Choice. A former high school teacher, he earned a PhD in education policy from the University of Arkansas, an MEd from the University of Notre Dame, and a BA in English from St. Louis University.
