Education, health care expected to be among Obama's priorities

Guthrie is professor of Public Policy and Education; director, Peabody Center for Education Policy; and chair, Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Vanderbilt's Peabody College.

Guthrie is a widely published authority on education policy, finance and governance. He can discuss a broad range of education policy issues facing the new president, including school finance, legal issues of equity and adequacy, education reform strategies, educational accountability, political processes and education, and education reform theories. He serves as a consultant to a number of federal and state agencies including the U.S. Department of Education, National Academy of Science, National Science Foundation and Agency for International Development. Guthrie is executive director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt.
Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4782.xml

Matthew Springer—Performance Pay for Teachers
Springer is director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt. Performance incentives were parts of key education discussions by both presidential candidates and are sure to be at the top of the list of policy questions for the new administration. He is a frequently quoted expert on the impact of teacher pay for performance on student achievement and teacher turnover, mobility and quality; the strategic resource allocation decision-making of schools in response to No Child Left Behind; the impact of school finance litigation on resource distribution and the role of school choice in contemporary education policy.
Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x2031.xml

Stella Flores—Immigration Policies and Higher Education
Flores, assistant professor of public policy and education, can discuss how the new president's stance on immigration may influence federal financial aid policies and their impact on immigrant students, demographic changes in higher education, Latino students and community colleges, and the challenges current immigrant migration patterns face for a new administration's education policy. She is the author of numerous papers on Latino educational opportunity and racial shifts in higher education. Her work was cited in the
2003 U.S. Supreme Court's Gratz v. Bollinger decision on affirmative action in higher education admissions.
Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x7515.xml

Christopher Loss—Federal Higher Education Policy
Loss can discuss the challenges the new administration will face in higher education policy and policymaking, particularly in light of the recently reauthorized Higher Education Act; student financial aid (work-study, loans, and grants); student services; adult learning; veterans' education benefits; international education policy and study abroad; and diversity. Loss is a historian of the 20th century United States who specializes in the political, social and policy history of U.S. higher education. He is assistant professor of public policy and higher education and an affiliated assistant professor of history.
Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x7509.xml

The following Vanderbilt professors can discuss health care policy issues:

Larry Van Horn—U.S. Health Care Policy and Future Outlook
Van Horn is director of the Health Care MBA Program and associate professor of management at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. He is a leading expert and researcher on health care management and economics. He can talk about the U.S. health care industry, health care delivery and insurance, and the future health care landscape. Van Horn is currently writing a book on U.S. health care policy.
Bio: http://www.owen.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt/About/faculty-research/f_profile.cfm?id=193

Jon Lehman—Business of Health Care
Lehman is an expert in formulating strategies for health care and health care information technology. As associate dean for health care at the Owen Graduate School of Management, he has responsibility for the Health Care MBA, a rigorous program designed to produce graduates specifically for the growing health care industry. He is former president and CEO of Evolved Digital Systems, a leading provider of digital-based image and information management systems for the health care industry, a company he co-founded 10 years ago.
Bio: http://www.owen.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt/About/faculty-research/f_profile.cfm?id=162