Paul Manna is the Isabelle and Jerome E. Hyman Distinguished University Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, where he also serves as a faculty affiliate in the college's Public Policy Program. His research and teaching focus on American politics, policy implementation, federalism, bureaucracy, and applied research methods. Manna is the author of School's In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda (Georgetown University Press, 2006), which examines the evolving relationship between federal and state education policy since the 1960s, and Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local Realities (CQ Press, 2011), which assesses No Child Left Behind's implementation from 2002-2009, early Obama administration initiatives, and potential future directions for federal policy. He is also co-editor, with Patrick McGuinn of Drew University, of Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century: Overcoming the Structural Barriers to School Reform (Brookings, 2013). Manna's current research is examining several topics including the role of state education advocacy organizations in the process of policy change, the relationship between neighborhood violence and school performance, and voter participation in elections for state education chief. After graduating with his B.A. in political science from Northwestern University, Manna taught social studies in his home-town public high school for three years before earning his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin.
