Douglas Harris is professor and chair of the Department of Economics, the Schlieder Foundation Chair in Public Education at Tulane University. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the founding director of the State of the Nation Project. The project's board includes representatives from seven of the nation's leading think tanks and advisors to the last five U.S. presidents with a goal of identifying and reporting on the most important measures that address the question, how are we doing as a country? He is also a leading scholar of education reform. Harris has testified in the U.S. Senate and advised governors in eight states, the U.S. Department of Education, and two U.S. presidents. Education Week named him one of the nation’s most influential education scholars every year for the past decade. He founded, and now directs, two centers on the topic: the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans (ERA-New Orleans), which focuses on the post-Katrina school reforms, and the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH), which focuses on market-oriented policies nationally. He is the author of two books on the topic, including Charter School City: What the End of Traditional Public Schools in New Orleans Means for American Education (University of Chicago Press, 2020). His work has also been cited in almost every major national and international media outlet.
