Member Since 2011

Gary Ritter


Gary W. Ritter is a Professor of Education and Public Policy and holder of the Endowed Chair in Education Policy in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He is also the Director and Founder (in 2003) of the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. His primary area of interest is the development of alternative strategies for teacher compensation in public schools. His research interests also include program evaluation, school finance, standards-based and accountability-based school reform, and racial segregation in schools. Gary currently teaches courses in Education Policy, Assessment of Educational Outcomes, Program Evaluation, and Research Methods to graduate students. His work has been published in various outlets, including Phi Delta Kappan, Review of Educational Research, Education Finance and Policy,Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the Journal of Education Finance, the American Review of Public Administration, the International Journal of Testing, the Georgetown Public Policy Review, Black Issues in Higher Education, Education Next, and Education Week. Gary graduated from John Carroll University with a Bachelor's degree in Finance in 1990. After working as a Jesuit Volunteer for Sacred Heart School in Camden, NJ, he attended the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, where he earned an MA in Social Policy. Upon his return to the United States, Gary earned an MA in Public Policy from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996 and Ph.D. in Education Policy in 2000 from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with his wife and five children.

Published Articles & Media

Our Reply to the Civil Rights Project’s Response

We are pleased that the authors of the Civil Rights Project (CRP) report on racial segregation in charter schools have chosen to respond to our reanalysis of the 2007-08 data. This dialogue is important as we attempt to move toward the most appropriate analytic strategies for this question. However, we take issue with three points made (or not made) in the CRP response.

A Closer Look at Charter Schools and Segregation

Flawed comparisons lead to overstated conclusions

Torturing the Charter Schools Until They Confess

Earlier this year the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project (CRP), jumped on the anti-charter bandwagon when it released “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards.” This was, in my view, just the latest salvo in a continuing barrage of assaults against charter schools by critics of choice. Sadly, this report received lots of uncritical publicity in major media outlets, despite obviously flawed analyses.

Puzzled States

In January 2002, President George W. Bush signed a comprehensive revision of the Elementary...

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