Terry M. Moe is the William Bennett Munro professor of political science at Stanford University, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a member of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. Moe is a respected political scientist, an education scholar, and a bestselling author. He has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.[1]
Moe has written extensively on the politics and reform of American education. In his latest book, Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools(Brookings Institution Press, 2011), he provides the first comprehensive study of America’s teachers unions, shedding new light on their historical rise to power, the organizational foundations of that power, the ways it is exercised in collective bargaining and politics, and its consequences for schools and kids. Through an analysis that is far-ranging and detailed, he shows that the teachers unions are the most powerful force in American education—and he argues that this is the key to understanding why, after more than a quarter century of costly education reform, the nation’s schools have proven so resistant to change and so difficult to improve.[2]
As a political scientist, Moe has written at length on public bureaucracy, the presidency, and political institutions more generally. Aside from his substantive contributions—regarding, for instance, the (ineffective) organization of bureaucratic agencies and the politicization and centralization of the institutional presidency—Moe was an early proponent (during the 1980s and into the 1990s) of putting the analytics of institutional theory to use in transforming the study of public bureaucracy and the presidency, and was instrumental in bringing significant progress to both fields.
Moe began his career in 1976 as an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University, where he soon published his first book, The Organization of Interests (University of Chicago Press, 1980), which explored the organizational foundations of political interest groups. In 1981, he left for Stanford University, where he has been a member of its political science faculty ever since.
He took leave from Stanford from 1984-86 to be a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. There he engaged in collaborative work with John Chubb on what became Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools (Brookings Institution Press, 1990)—a book that, in showing how politics shapes and undermines the public schools and in arguing the value of school choice, had a major impact on the education reform movement. It is regarded as among the most influential and controversial works on education to be published in the last two decades.
In 1992 Moe became a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and thereafter held joint appointments in both the Stanford political science department and Hoover. From 2003-07, he served as chair of the political science department. In 2003 he was also awarded the William Bennett Munro Professorship, an endowed chair in political science.[3]
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Released in April 2011 by The Brookings Institution Press, Terry Moe’s Special Interest: Teachers Union and America’s Public Schools addresses key questions about the public school system that have long perplexed policy makers. Moe demonstrates that the answers to these questions have a great deal to do with the teachers unions, who use their power—in politics, in collective bargaining—to pursue their own special interests at the expense of what is best for children.[4]
"America's public schools are broken, and Terry Moe sets out to explain why. In a bare-knuckled and brilliant account, he shows how the teachers unions use their unmatched political power to control virtually every aspect of educational policy and practice. The result, not surprisingly, is a system that protects the interests of employees at the expense of our kids." —Joel Klein, CEO, News Corp Education Division, and former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools
"Anyone who wants to understand education reform and its challenges should read this extraordinary book. Over the past few decades, teachers unions have become some of the most powerful actors in American public education. Terry Moe fills a crucial gap by exploring how the unions work; how they veto important reforms in ways that are detrimental for children; and how their power might be waning. As with his prior work, this book will make a tremendous difference in how we run our schools." —Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools
"Special Interest constitutes the most serious and sustained inquiry into teachers unions ever conducted. It has the signature markings of Moe's scholarship: impeccable writing, clear and persuasive argumentation, sound empirics, and an utter unwillingness to pull any punches. In the ongoing debate about teacher unions and school reform, this book is a game changer." —William Howell, University of Chicago
Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools (2011, The Brookings Institution Press)
Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education (with John Chubb - 2009, Jossey-Bass)
Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public (2001, The Brookings Institution Press)
Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools (with John Chubb - 1990, The Brookings Institution Press)
The Organization of Interests (1980, University of Chicago Press)
“The New Economics of Organization.” 1984. American Journal of Political Science 28 (November): 739-777.
"The Politicized Presidency." 1985. In The New Direction in American Politics, edited by John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution: 235-71.
“The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure.” 1989. Can the Government Govern?, edited by John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution: 267-329.
“Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story." 1990. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6: 213-254. Reprinted in Public Choice Theory, edited by Charles K. Rowley, 1993. Hant, England: Edward Elgar.
“Presidents, Institutions, and Theory.” 1993. In Researching the Presidency: Vital Questions, New Approaches, edited by George C. Edwards III, John H. Kessel and Bert A. Rockman. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
“The Presidential Power of Unilateral Action.” 1999 (with William Howell). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 15 no. 1 (April): 132-179. Reprinted in Public Choice and Public Law, edited by Daniel A. Farber. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2007.
“Power and Political Institutions.” 2005. Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 3, No. 2 (June): 215-33. Reprinted in Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, edited by Ian Shapiro, Stephen Skowronek and Daniel Galvin. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
“The Revolution in Presidential Theory.” 2009. Presidential Studies Quarterly. Vol. 39 No. 3 (December): 701-724.