David A Gamson

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  • Professor of Education (Educational Theory & Policy), Penn State

David Gamson is professor of education in the Educational Theory and Policy program within the Department of Education Policy Studies. His research and teaching interests focus on the history of education in the United States, the history of school reform, and educational policy and analysis. He is currently researching the role played by school districts in education reform movements and the history of equal educational opportunity in the United States.

Experience

  • 2007–present
    Professor, Penn State, Department of Education Policy Studies

Education

  • 2001 
    Stanford University, Ph.D

Publications

  • 2025
    Gamson, D. A., Turner, E. O., & Kissell, R. E. (2025). Policies and Politics of the American School District: Past, Present, and Future. , In Lora Cohen-Vogel, Janelle Scott, and Peter Youngs (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Education Policy.
  • 2024
    Dorn & Gamson, 23 Myths About the History of American Schools: What the Truth Can Tell Us, and Why It Matters, Teachers College Press
  • 2019
    The Importance of Being Urban: Designing the Progressive School District, 1890- 1940, University of Chicago Press
  • 2018
    Gamson & Hodge, The Shifting Landscape of the American School District: Race, Class, Geography, and the Perpetual Reform of Local Control, 1935-2015, Peter Lang
  • 2015
    Stevens, R.J., Lu, X., Baker, D.P., Ray, M.N., Eckert, S.A., Gamson, D.A. (2015). “Assessing the Cognitive Demands of Elementary School Reading Curricula: An Analysis of Reading Text and Comprehension Tasks from 1910 to 2000.”, American Educational Research Journal
  • 2015
    Gamson, D.A., McDermott, K., & Reed, D. (2015) “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at Fifty: Aspirations, Effects, and Limitations.” (Introduction to the Special Issue on ESEA at 50.) , RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
  • 2013
    Gamson, Lu, & Eckert, “Challenging the Research Base of the Common Core State Standards: A Historical Reanalysis of Text Complexity” , Educational Researcher

Grants and Contracts

  • 2019
    “What Students Knew and Were Able to Do: Two Centuries of American Academic Standards”
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Spencer Foundation
  • 2015
    with Douglas Reed and Kathryn McDermott), Presidential Authority Award to hold conference on December 5, 2014 entitled “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at 50 and Beyond: Inequality, Educational Opportunity and the Shifting Terrain of the Federal Role in Public Education.” Russell Sage Foundation
    Role:
    Co-PI
    Funding Source:
    Russell Sage Foundation
  • 2011
    “Re-reading Our Past: The Cognitive Demands of Reading and Reading Comprehension, 1890-2005.”
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Spencer Foundation
  • 2008
    “The Increasing Cognitive Demand of the American Mathematics Curriculum, 1890-2005.”
    Role:
    Investigator and Grant Writer
    Funding Source:
    Spencer Foundation

Professional Memberships

  • American Educational Research Association
  • History of Education Society

Contact David for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision