James W. Guthrie

James W. Guthrie is co-founder and former co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). He is a presidential fellow and professor of education policy at Lynn University and was previously the first gubernatorially appointed superintendent of public instruction for the state of Nevada. He served as senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University and was the Patricia and Rodes Hart professor of educational leadership and policy and director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Vanderbilt University. He chaired Peabody College’s Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations and spent 27 years as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or co-author of 20 books and more than 200 scholarly articles. A past president of the American Education Finance Association and former vice president of the American Educational Research Association, he served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Education and as series editor of the Peabody Education Leadership Series. Guthrie earned his MA in educational administration and a PhD in educational administration from Stanford University, and pursued postdoctoral studies in economics and public finance at Harvard University and Oxford University.

updated 2025