Chester E. Finn Jr.
Senior Fellow
Chair, K–12 Education Task Force

Expertise: Education policy, education reform

Click here for bio summary.

Chester E. Finn Jr. is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and chairman of Hoover’s Task Force on K–12 Education. He is also president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and senior editor of Education Next.

He served as assistant secretary for research and improvement at the U.S. Department of Education from 1985 to 1988. From 1988 to 1996, he was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, including two years as its chairman.

Finn was formerly a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. From 1995 through 1998, he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. From 1992 through 1994, he served as founding partner and senior scholar with the Edison Project. Earlier positions include staff assistant to the president of the United States; special assistant to the governor of Massachusetts; counsel to the American ambassador to India; and research associate at the Brookings Institution.

Author of 16 books, Finn's most recent are Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut and Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik. Others include No Remedy Left Behind: Lessons from a Half-Decade of NCLB, coedited with Frederick M. Hess; Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, coedited with Andrew Rotherham and Charles Hokanson; Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education, coauthored with Bruno V. Manno and Gregg Vanourek; The Educated Child: A Parent's Guide from Pre-School through Eighth Grade, coauthored with William J. Bennett and John Cribb; and What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? written with Hoover Institution distinguished visiting fellow Diane Ravitch.

Finn has also written more than 400 articles for such publications as the Weekly Standard, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the Public Interest, the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Business Review, the American Spectator, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times.

He holds a doctorate in education policy, as well as a master’s degree in social studies teaching and an undergraduate degree in U.S. history, all from Harvard University.

The father of two grown children and grandfather of two preschoolers, Finn and his wife, Renu Virmani, a physician, live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.