Horace Mann, (born May 4, 1796, Franklin, Massachusetts, U.S.—died August 2, 1859, Yellow Springs, Ohio), American educator, the first great American advocate of public education who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method, and reliant on well-trained professional teachers. Of the many causes Mann espoused, none was dearer to him than popular education. Nineteenth-century Massachusetts could boast a public school system going back to 1647. Yet during Mann’s own lifetime, the quality of education had deteriorated as school control had gradually slipped into the hands of economy-minded local districts. A vigorous reform movement arose, committed to halting this decline by reasserting the state’s influence. The result was the establishment in 1837 of a state board of education, charged with collecting and publicizing school information throughout the state. Much against the advice of friends, who thought he was tossing aside a promising political career, Mann accepted the first secretaryship of this board. His 12 annual reports to the board ranged far and wide through the field of pedagogy, stating the case for the public school and discussing its problems. Essentially his message centred on six fundamental propositions: (1) that a republic cannot long remain ignorant and free, hence the necessity of universal popular education; (2) that such education must be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public; (3) that such education is best provided in schools embracing children of all religious, social, and ethnic backgrounds; (4) that such education, while profoundly moral in character, must be free of sectarian religious influence; (5) that such education must be permeated throughout by the spirit, methods, and discipline of a free society, which preclude harsh pedagogy in the classroom; and (6) that such education can be provided only by well-trained, professional teachers. Mann encountered strong resistance to these ideas—from clergymen who deplored nonsectarian schools, from educators who condemned his pedagogy as subversive of classroom authority, and from politicians who opposed the board as an improper infringement of local educational authority—but his views prevailed. 

-- Britannica

Claudia Goldin is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and was the director of the NBER’s Development of the American Economy program from 1989 to 2017. She is a co-director of the NBER's Gender in the Economy group.  An economic historian and a labor economist, Goldin's research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern. Her most recent book is Career & Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity (Princeton University Press, 2021). Goldin is best known for her historical work on women in the U.S. economy. Her most influential papers in that area have concerned the history of women’s quest for career and family, coeducation in higher education, the impact of the “Pill” on women’s career and marriage decisions, women’s surnames after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons why women are now the majority of undergraduates, and the new lifecycle of women’s employment.

-- Harvard University

Lawrence F. Katz is the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.  His research focuses on issues in labor economics and the economics of social problems. He is the author (with Claudia Goldin) of The Race between Education and Technology (Harvard University Press, 2008), a history of U.S. economic inequality and the roles of technological change and the pace of educational advance in affecting the wage structure. Katz also has been studying the impacts of neighborhood poverty on low-income families as the principal investigator of the long-term evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity program, a randomized housing mobility experiment.  His past research has explored a wide range of topics including U.S. and comparative wage inequality trends, educational wage differentials and the labor market returns to education, the impact of globalization and technological change on the labor market, the economics of immigration, unemployment and unemployment insurance, regional labor markets, the evaluation of labor market programs, the problems of low-income neighborhoods, and the social and economic consequences of the birth control pill.  

-- Harvard University

David F. Labaree is a sociologically oriented historian of education who seeks to explore some of the major processes and patterns that define the relationship between education and society in the United States. In his research, he aims to analyze the evolving institutional character of educational organizations (such as the high school, community college, education school, and university) and the evolving role of key groups that affect education (such as teachers, teacher educators, and reform movements) in the context of the broader purposes and functions of education in a liberal democracy. Within this broad approach to the subject, he has focused in the past on two major areas of study. One is the pressure exerted by markets on democratic education; the other is the peculiar nature of education schools as they have evolved over the years in the U.S.

-- Stanford University

Dr. Maxine McKinney de Royston comes to Erikson from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she currently serves as Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Education as well as a DSW from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to her appointment as tenured Associate Professor at UW-Madison, Dr. McKinney de Royston held prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowships from the Spencer and Ford Foundations. She has received a number of awards and fellowships in teaching and research. Maxine McKinney de Royston speaks several languages, including Portuguese, Guaraní (Paraguay) and Haitian Kreyòle. She is also fluent in English, Spanish, and Tetun (Timor-Leste). Maxine McKinney de Royston will begin her new role on August 1, when she will become Dean McKinney de Royston.

-- Erikson Institute

Carol D. Lee is professor emerita (the former Edwina S. Tarry Professor) of Education in the School of Education and Social Policy and in African-American Studies at Northwestern University. Lee, the president of the National Academy of Education, is best known in academia for her five decades of work helping students from minority backgrounds excel in an environment of low expectations, poverty, negative stereotypes, and other barriers. She was among the early scholars to scaffold children’s everyday experiences as a resource for learning in school. Today her sophisticated ideas behind “cultural modeling” are a standard approach in the field. Her research addresses cultural supports for learning that include a broad ecological focus, with attention to language and literacy and African-American youth. Her 54-year career includes teaching English Language Arts at the high school and community college levels. She was also a primary grade teacher and university professor. She founded three African-centered schools, including two charter schools under the umbrella of the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools (est. 1998) where she serves as chair of the board of directors.

-- Northwestern SESP

Na’ilah Suad Nasir is the sixth President of the Spencer Foundation, which funds education research nationally. Prior to joining Spencer, she held a faculty appointment in Education and African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley where she also served as the chair of African American Studies, then later as the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion. She also served on the Faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Nasir’s research examines the racialized and cultural nature of learning and schooling, with a particular focus on the experiences of African American students in schools and communities. She recently co-edited The Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning (Routledge) and We Dare Say Love: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys. She is also the author of Racialized Identities: Race and achievement for African-American youth, published by the Stanford University Press in 2012. Nasir is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. She is President (2021-2022) of the American Educational Research Association. She serves on the L&S Advisory Board and is a board director of Stiles Hall, both at UC Berkeley.

-- National Public Education Support Fund

Roy Pea is David Jacks Professor of Education & Learning Sciences at Stanford University, School of Education, and Computer Science (Courtesy), and has been Director of the H-STAR Institute. His studies and publications in the learning sciences focus on advancing theories, research, tools and social practices of technology-enhanced learning of complex domains, including his role as Co-Director and Co-PI of the NSF-funded LIFE Center (2004-2014), which sought to develop and test principles about the social foundations of human learning in informal and formal environments with the goal of enhancing human learning from infancy to adulthood. He is also founder and Director of Stanford’s PhD program in Learning Sciences and Technology Design. He is co-author of the 2010 National Education Technology Plan for the US Department of Education, co-editor of Mirrors of Minds: Patterns of Experience in Educational Computing (1987), Video Research in the Learning Sciences (2007), Learning Analytics in Education (2018), The Routledge Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning (2020), AI in Education (2022), and co-author of the National Academy of Sciences book: How People Learn (2000). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Education, Association for Psychological Science, the American Educational Research Association, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In 2004-2005, Roy was President of the International Society for the Learning Sciences. Roy served from 1999-2009 as a Director for Teachscape, a video-based teacher professional development services company he co-founded with CEO Mark Atkinson.

-- Stanford University