Tom Loveless — who has taught at both the university and grade school level — will join Brookings on July 1, 1999 as director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and senior fellow in Governmental Studies, Brookings President Michael H. Armacost announced.
Loveless is leaving Harvard University where he has been teaching public policy as an associate professor since 1997 and was assistant professor from 1992 to 1997 at the Kennedy School of Government. His research examined the politics of education reform with a particular focus on charter schools, national standards, efforts to diminish tracking, and initiatives to promote education technology.
From 1979 to 1988, Loveless taught all academic subjects as an elementary school teacher in the San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento, California and served on many state and local curriculum committees. From 1989 to 1993, he was a high school instructor in Asian and European Studies at the summer Academy for International Studies, an innovative program offered by the Sacramento County Office of Education.
“Educating our children to meet the challenges of the 21st Century is one of society’s most pressing tasks,” said Armacost. “I can think of no one better qualified than Tom Loveless to direct the Brown Center’s important contributions to the policy debate on education. Not only has he studied and written about these issues as a scholar, he has experienced them first-hand as a classroom teacher.”
Established in 1992, the Brown Center on Education Policy has established itself as one of the leading centers in the country for policy research in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Loveless, who will be the first full-time, resident director, will enable the Center to become a major participant in the national debate on education reform. A goal of the Brown Center is to better inform decision makers and the public about the future of education and to enrich the understanding of education reform by linking research to policy.
“I am honored to be joining one of the nation’s premier research institutions,” says Loveless. “Improving the educational system is one of society’s biggest challenges, and Brookings is determined to play a leading role in future reform efforts.”
Loveless is the author of The Tracking Wars: State Reform Meets School Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 1999) and editor of Teachers Unions and Educational Reform (forthcoming). Recent articles have appeared in American Journal of Education, Brookings Papers on Education Policy, Educational Policy, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Education Administration Quarterly.
Loveless, who was awarded a National Academy of Education Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship for 1995-1997, holds a Ph.D. in education from University of Chicago, an M.A. in special education from California State University, Sacramento, and a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.