Paul Manna

Professor Manna joined the Government Department in 2003, and he also has been a faculty affiliate of the Public Policy Program since arriving at W&M. He earned a B.A. from Northwestern University in 1992 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 2003. Prior to graduate school he was a high school social studies teacher and debate coach. His research and teaching interests primarily focus on American politics, public policy, and applied research methods. Within those broad areas he studies federalism, policy implementation, bureaucracy, and K-12 education policy. He has completed four book projects and written numerous articles, book chapters, and reports. He is the author of School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda (Georgetown University Press, 2006) and Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local Realities (CQ Press, 2011). He is co-editor of Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century: Overcoming the Structural Barriers to School Reform (Brookings Institution, 2013) and co-author of a well-known American government textbook entitled The Challenge of Democracy (Cengage). Manna’s public-facing work has informed policymakers across the nation, especially his research and writing for The Wallace Foundation that has focused on the role state policy can play in improving the quality of school principals. Prof. Manna was chair of the Government Department from 2016-2020 and Director of the W&M Public Policy Program from 2021-2024.