Christopher Lubienski

Christopher Lubienski is a Professor of education policy at Indiana University. He is also a fellow with the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Visiting Professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and was previously Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia. He is co-leader and convener of the Scholar Strategy Network’s K-12 Working Group.

His research focuses on education policy, reform, and the political economy of education, with a particular concern for issues of equity and access. His current work examines (1) organizational responses to competitive conditions in local education markets, including geo-spatial analyses education opportunities, and research on innovation in education markets for the OECD, and (2) policymakers’ use of research evidence as influenced by advocacy organizations.

After earning a PhD in education policy and social analysis at Michigan State University, Lubienski held post-doctoral fellowships with the National Academy of Education and with the Advanced Studies Program at Brown University. He was recently named a Fulbright Senior Scholar for New Zealand, where he studies school policies and student enrollment patterns. He is lead PI of a multi-year project on intermediary organizations’ ability to influence the use of research evidence in the policymaking process (with Janelle Scott and Elizabeth DeBray).

He has authored both theoretical and empirical journal articles on questions of innovation and achievement in school choice systems, including peer-reviewed articles in the American Journal of Education, the Oxford Review of Education, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Education Policy, Educational Researcher, and the Congressional Quarterly Researcher. His work has been funded by the federal Institute of Education Sciences, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Australian Research Council, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Spencer Foundation. Lubienski has also been invited to testify before the U.S. Congress, and his work has been featured in news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, La Liberacion, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Education Supplement, and Business Week. In addition to School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives (with Walter Feinberg, SUNY Press, 2008), Lubienski published The Charter School Experiment: Expectations, Evidence, and Implications (with Peter Weitzel, Harvard Education Press). His recent book, The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (with co-author Sarah Theule Lubienski, University of Chicago Press), won the 2015 PROSE Award for Education Theory from the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence. His 2016 book, The Global Education Industry (co-edited with Antoni Verger and Gita Steiner-Khamsi), was published by Routledge. His newest book, Privatization and the Education of Marginalized Children: Policies, Impacts and Global Lessons (with Bekisizwe Ndimande), was published by Routledge in April 2017.