Patrick Wolf

Dr. Wolf previously taught at Columbia and Georgetown University and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution. Wolf has worked as a pizza deliverer, a state government administrator, an advocate for people with hearing impairments, and a janitor’s assistant, though not necessarily in that order. As principal investigator of the School Choice Demonstration Project he has led longitudinal evaluations of school voucher programs in Washington, DC; Milwaukee, WI; and the state of Louisiana. Research projects led or co-led by Dr. Wolf have been awarded 39 research grants and contracts totaling over $23 million. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited five books and nearly 200 journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, and policy reports on private school choice, public charter schools, civic values, special education, public management, and campaign finance.

Dr. Wolf has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress five times and before committees of state legislatures 23 times. He has been interviewed on National Public Radio or state-affiliated Public Radio nine times. His school choice research has been discussed on ABC World News Tonight, the CNN Morning Show, MSNBC, Fox News Special Report, The News Hour, CSPAN, and many more, and Education Week consistently ranks him among the most influential education policy academics.

His 2019 co-authored article on a school voucher experiment in India won the Best Research Award of the World Research Council. His 1997 article on Reinventing Government won the national Best Article Award of the Academy of Management, Division on Public and Nonprofit Management. He received the Significant Research Award of the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions in 2011 and was one of the 10 Most Outstanding Faculty Members at the University of Arkansas in 2016. His papers have won prizes at the Global Home Education Conference in 2015 and the International School Choice & Reform Conference in 2017. A 1987 graduate of the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN), he received his Ph.D. in political science from the Government Department at Harvard University in 1995.