F. Howard Nelson

F. Howard Nelson is Lead Researcher in the Office of the President for the American Federation of Teachers. In this role he provides quantitative policy analysis for the organization. He is currently studying various aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act, especially teacher mobility as it relates to the shortage of quality teachers in high-needs areas. One aspect of this work is the technical analysis of performance pay systems for teachers including value added models. He is a member of the technical advisory panel of the Chicago Value Added Project and the advisory panel for the SASS Longitudinal Teacher Follow-Up Survey. Another aspect of this current work is providing strategic research for the AFT’s effort to recruit veteran teachers for New Orleans. Nelson is an author of a controversial study released in 2004, Charter School Achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Prior to these efforts, he directed the federally-funded National Charter School Finance Study. For more than a decade, Nelson prepared the annual 50-state teacher salary survey of the AFT. He also specializes in analyzing budgets, international education data, education vouchers and analyzing private contracting in public schools. Dr. Nelson has a Master’s Degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Educational Policy from the University of Wisconsin. He taught school finance in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, for many years prior to joining the AFT. Including his work at the AFT, he has written several book chapters and published over three dozen articles in academic journals.