Educational Freedom: Remembering Andrew Coulson — Debating His Ideas

Although his life was cut tragically short in 2016, Andrew Coulson had a remarkable impact on education policy. As director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom from 2005 to 2015, Coulson was committed to excellence in education and consistently advocated for free-market reforms that would make schools more flexible, innovative, and responsive to the needs of parents and students. In this volume, prominent education researchers and thinkers who knew Andrew and his ideas well commemorate his legacy with articles that explore and expand the vitality and urgency of his ideas.

Neal McCluskey is the director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. Prior to arriving at Cato, McCluskey served in the U.S. Army, taught high-school English, and was a freelance reporter covering municipal government and education in suburban New Jersey. More recently, he was a policy analyst at the Center for Education Reform. McCluskey is the author of the book Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, and his writings have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Forbes.

Jason Bedrick is director of policy for EdChoice. Previously, he was policy analyst with the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. He also served as a legislator in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and was an education policy research fellow at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy.

Andrew J. Coulson was the director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom from 2005 to 2015 and a senior fellow from 2015 until his death in February 2016. Previously, he was senior fellow in education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He served on the advisory council of the E.G. West Centre for Market Solutions in Education at the University of Newcastle, UK, and contributed to books published by the Fraser Institute and the Hoover Institution.