Peter W. Cookson, Jr.

Peter W. Cookson, Jr. has authored or co-authored fifteen books, thirty-five peer reviewed articles, over fifty scholarly papers, and twenty book chapters. A sociologist of education he has taught and held leadership positions at several leading colleges and universities; presently he is teaching the sociology of urban education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

His work focuses on issues of education and inequality. His co-authored Prepared for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools (Basic Books) is a landmark study of class and American education. He writes extensively on issues of educational policy including School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education (Yale University Press) and Expect Miracles: Charter Schools and the Politics of Hope and Despair(Westview Press). He is currently examining class reproduction in America high schools for a forthcoming book, The Great Unequalizer. In early 2011, Sacred Trust: A Children’s Education Bill of Rights was published by Corwin Press in May, 2011.

He has appeared on television to discuss educational issues numerous times and presents regularly at national and international meetings. He has written numerous op-ed articles and has often been asked to comment on educational issues by print media and on radio.

Cookson is the Founder of Ideas without Borders a Washington DC based educational consulting firm focused on human rights and 21st century learning. He holds a doctorate in the sociology of education from New York University and a masters degree from Yale Divinity School, where he held the Katsuso Miho Scholarship in Peacemaking.