Eric A. Hanushek, who is considered one of the leading scholars in the economics of education, has been appointed the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow on Education Policy at the Hoover Institution, effective July 1.
Hanushek will also oversee the continued development of the Paul and Jean Hanna Archival Collection on the Role of Education.
"Rick Hanushek brings a valuable combination of academic and public policy experience to the Hoover Institution," said Hoover Institution director John Raisian. "His work represents a remarkable intersection of economic thought and research on K–12 education."
Hanushek has been a member of the Institution's Koret Taskforce on K–12 Education since that group's inception in September of 1999.
Hanushek is a pioneer in the scientific study of such issues as whether smaller class size or better teachers result in higher student achievement.
He also has contributed to the literatures that link education investment to productivity and economic development, that investigate the effects of changing patterns of educational spending, and that consider efficiency in schools.
Hanushek has been at the University of Rochester as a professor of economics and political science since 1978 and has been director of the Wallis Institute of Political Economy since 1991. He has also served on the faculties of Yale University and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
He has held a number of government posts, including serving as Deputy Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1985, and as a member of the New York State Assembly's Board of Economic Advisors from 1994–98.
Hanushek holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Paul R. Hanna (1902–1988) was for many years a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and, before that, the Lee L. Jacks Professor of Child Education at Stanford University. During his years at the Hoover Institution, Hanna funded the establishment of the Hanna Collection, one of the world's largest private archival collections concerned with the role of education globally. He was the founder of the Stanford International Development Education Center, and he undertook numerous missions abroad for Stanford, the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, private agencies, and foreign governments. His wife, Jean S. Hanna, was a teacher of English in this country and overseas, and was coauthor and coeditor with her husband of several widely acclaimed textbook series.
