Opinion Blog


Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Education Opinion

Introducing Your Special Guest Stars: Plucker, Feigler, Saultz, & McShane

By Rick Hess — November 28, 2014 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

It’s been a busy fall, what with election fever, finishing the copy-edits on The Cage-Busting Teacher, and watching the U.S. Department of Education rewrite the requirements of ESEA on a near-daily basis. I’m going to hand the blog off to a series of guest stars while I read and decompress, and I’ll be back after Christmas. And, when I’m back, pretty much the first order of business will be the 2015 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence rankings, so keep an eye out. Meanwhile, here’s your guest lineup.

Jonathan Plucker, the Raymond Neag Professor of Education at the University of Connecticut, will kick things off. He’ll be blogging the week of December 1 on topics including gender, inequality, and the most important foundation you’ve never heard of. An authority on gifted education, a regular RHSU guest blogger, and a longtime fan favorite, his recent books include Intelligence 101 and the second edition of Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education.

Next up is Andre Feigler, the founder and CEO of Enriched Schools, a startup that helps provide schools with fantastic substitute teachers. A former high school teacher in New Orleans, Andre previously co-founded Youth Run NOLA. She has advised entrepreneurs as a new venture consultant for the Propeller Social Enterprise Accelerator and as entrepreneur-in-residence at 4.0 Schools. Andre is a certified yoga instructor, a former professional ballet dancer, and someone who appreciates her crawfish. C’mon, how many yoga-teaching, crawfish lovin’ education entrepreneurs have you heard from lately?

The week of December 15, Andrew Saultz will be stepping in. An assistant professor of educational leadership at Miami University of Ohio, he’s a former high school social studies teacher (sweet) and has served as a school board member (not so sweet). For the last two years, Andy has been talking with state policymakers across the land about what they make of recent shifts in federal education policy. He’ll be writing about what he’s learned and what it all means when it comes to Race to the Top, ESEA waivers, and the future of educational policy.

Last up, during Christmas week, will be my colleague and pal Mike McShane. A research fellow here at AEI, Mike has a broad focus but tends to concentrate on questions of school choice, teacher quality, and the Common Core. A former high school English teacher in Montgomery, Alabama, his books include Teacher Quality 2.0, Common Core Meets Education Reform, and President Obama and Education Reform.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you all in late December.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.