Restoring Excellence in Education

RiShawn Biddle

RiShawn Biddle is Editor and Publisher of Dropout Nation – the leading commentary Web site on education reform – and a columnist for The American Spectator. More importantly, he is a tireless advocate for improving the quality of K-12 education for every child. The co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era, Biddle combines journalism, research and advocacy to bring insight on the nation’s education crisis and rally families and others to transform American public education. He serves as an adviser to the Connecticut Parents Union, a new organization that aims to help families become lead decision-makers in education, and consultant to the Black Alliance for Educational Options, which has expanded high-quality school options for working-class families. The New York City native – who now lives with his lovely wife, Davina, in Alexandria, Va. – has also written for such publications as USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Television Week, National Review, The Catholic World Report, Politico, Reuters, and The Los Angeles Daily News.

Dr. Richard Vedder

Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ohio University, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Vedder has written widely on American economic history, authoring such books as Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America and The American Economy in Historical Perspective. He served as a member of Secretary Margaret Spelling's Commission of the Future of Higher Education, and is the author of Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.

Dr. Vedder is also the author of numerous scholarly papers for journals in economics and public policy, as well as shorter pieces for the popular press including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The American Enterprise, CATO Journal and Forbes. He received a BA from Northwestern University and a MA and PhD from the University of Illinois.