Peter Cunningham

Peter Cunningham is the founder of Education Post and serves on its board. He served as Assistant Secretary for communications and outreach in the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration’s first term. Prior to that he worked with Arne Duncan when he was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. Peter is affiliated with Whiteboard Advisors, a DC-based education policy, research and communications firm. He serves on several non-profit boards, including Oakland-based Great Schools, which provides school quality information to parents through a national online platform, The Montessori School of Englewood, a Chicago public charter school, Manufacturing Renaissance, a career education program that trains public high school students for jobs in manufacturing, Unbounded, an organization supporting teachers in schools that are transitioning to higher standards, and Foolproofme.com, which is focused on financial literacy for students. Peter founded Cunningham Communications, serving public, private and nonprofit clients, worked for political consultant David Axelrod, and was a senior advisor and speechwriter for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. A native New Yorker, Peter began his career as a journalist with small weekly newspapers in New York. He earned an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in philosophy from Duke University. He is married to artist Jackie Kazarian, and they have two adult children who are proud graduates of the Chicago Public Schools. Peter joined the Education Post board in 2018 after stepping down as the organization's Executive Director. Meet our board →

Posts By Peter Cunningham

Standards

The Common Core Emphasizes Close Reading. Its Critics Should Try That Sometime.

Note the nuance in a press release from the ACT regarding an analysis of the Common Core State Standards based on a survey of 9200 K-12 and college educators (emphasis mine): New research from ACT...

Diversity

Education Reformers Are Talking About Race and They Should Be

Ed reform circles are getting all worked up about race. Chicago charter parent and educator Marilyn Rhames started the conversation with a modest celebration of the growing diversity in the reform...

Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris Attack Anyone Who Disagrees

Recently, a prominent American citizen released a video urging the next president of the United States to spend one day teaching in a high-poverty school and another day teaching in a wealthy school...

California

Why Both Political Parties Need Education Reform

Conservatives argue that markets will solve social problems more efficiently and effectively than the public sector while liberals insist that markets leave too many behind and that government...

Washington D.C.

Why Evaluating Teachers Is Really Hard to Do

I recently had dinner with two teachers who told me that in their combined 38 years of teaching they have had exactly three meaningful feedback sessions with their principals. The absence of useful...

Poverty

Look, I'm Not the Enemy But Investing in Education Without Accountability Just Doesn't Work

My recent visit to the Network for Public Education’s annual conference in North Carolina has yielded much fruit. In addition to an extended blog conversation with Peter Greene on the topic of...

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