Frederick M. Hess is resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. An educator, political scientist, and author, Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. His books include Cage-Busting Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2013), Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age (Corwin Press, 2014), The Same Thing Over and Over (Harvard University Press, 2010), Education Unbound (ASCD, 2010), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Spinning Wheels (Brookings Institution Press, 1998). He is also the author of the popular Education Week blog Rick Hess Straight Up. Hess's work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News and World Report, National Affairs, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on the Common Core, the role of for profits in education, education philanthropy, urban school reform, how to stretch the school dollar, education entrepreneurship, what we have learned about the federal role in education reform, and No Child Left Behind. Hess also serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, and on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and 4.0 Schools. A former high school social studies teacher, he teaches or has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University, and Harvard University.

Michael Q. McShane is a research fellow in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is coauthor of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012). His scholarship has been published in Education Finance and Policy and in various technical reports. He has also contributed to more popular publications, such as Education Next, Huffington Post, National Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is coeditor (with Frederick Hess) of Common Core Meets the Reform Agenda (Teachers College Press, 2013). McShane began his career as an inner-city high school teacher in Montgomery, Alabama.