Kosar, Kevin R. 1970–

views updated

Kosar, Kevin R. 1970–

PERSONAL:

Born March 14, 1970, in Akron, OH. Education: Studied at Kent State University; Ohio State University, B.A.; New York University, M.A., Ph.D., 2003.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Washington, DC. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Researcher and writer. Chess-in-the-Schools, New York, NY, program associate, 1996-97; New York Press, New York, NY, staff member; New York University, New York, NY, lecturer in public service; Manhattan Institute and Hudson Institute, New York, NY, researcher; Metropolitan College of New York, New York, NY, special assistant to the president, 2002, lecturer in public affairs and administration; Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, researcher and analyst. New York University Lynde and Henry Bradley Foundation fellow; Presidential Management Fellows Program fellow.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Bridging the Gap: Higher Education and Career-Centered Welfare Reform, National Urban League/Metropolitan College of New York (New York, NY), 2003.

Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards, L. Rienner (Boulder, CO), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals and journals, including History of Education Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Teachers College Record, American, Weekly Standard, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Press, History News Network, and Choice. Founder of Bully magazine, 1998, and AlcoholReviews.com, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kevin R. Kosar is an American researcher and writer. He was born in Akron, Ohio, on March 14, 1970. Kosar initially studied at Kent State University and later switched to Ohio State University to complete a bachelor of arts degree in political philosophy from the Honors College. After moving to New York City, Kosar undertook graduate studies at New York University, where he was a Lynde and Henry Bradley Foundation fellow, eventually earning a master of arts degree in political philosophy. In 2003, he completed a Ph.D. from New York University.

After moving to New York, Kosar worked from 1996 to 1997 as a program associate for Chess-in-the-Schools, a not-for-profit corporation that encourages teaching chess in New York's lowest-performing schools to increase the students' analytical capacity. Around that time, he also worked on staff with the New York Press and lectured in public service at New York University. In 2002, Kosar served as special assistant to the president of Metropolitan College of New York and lectured in public affairs and administration at the college. After completing his dissertation, Kosar was accepted into the Presidential Management Fellows Program and moved to Washington, DC. There he worked as a researcher and analyst at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.

As a writer, Kosar contributes to a number of periodicals and journals, including the History of Education Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Teachers College Record, American, Weekly Standard, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Press, History News Network, and Choice. In 1998, he founded Bully magazine with Ken Wohlrob. The following year, he founded AlcoholReviews.com. Kosar published his first book in 2003, Bridging the Gap: Higher Education and Career-Centered Welfare Reform, serving as its editor.

In 2005, Kosar published Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards. The book describes the education policies prevalent in the United States. In addition, the book examines the ironies that exist between liberal views on education and policies for education and the conservative views on education and policies for education. Kosar uses the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy of George W. Bush as his primary case study of this irony. Proposed by the Republican Party—a party that has long since been an advocate for less government involvement in the public school system—the policy gives the federal government a significantly larger role in public education. However, the opposing views on education policy have put the country at a standstill, with one side suspicious of federal involvement in education policy but demanding schools be held responsible for their students' poor performance on standardized testing, and the other side preferring the federal involvement in the education sector but wary of standardized testing as a measure of success. Kosar shows how the Quality Schools Advocacy (QSA), a group comprised of centrist politicians and business leaders, seeks the middle ground in this debate by proposing a series of incentives to encourage individual schools to take the necessary steps to improve their own conditions, a position candidate Bush initially took during the 2000 presidential election. Ultimately, the NCLB policy left states responsible for setting their own standards, which resulted in varying and skewered results nationwide—another irony Kosar highlights in the book.

David E. Campbell, writing in the Political Science Quarterly, stated that "in telling its tale, Failing Grades both describes and prescribes." Campbell further noted that "as a work of policy analysis, Kosar's book succeeds. However, if you are looking for a book that situates NCLB in the wider context of American politics and policy making, Failing Grades falls short." Nevertheless, Campbell concluded that the book is "an authoritative source on the ironies that characterize contemporary education policy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June 1, 2006, R. Roth, review of Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards, p. 1876.

Political Science Quarterly, September 22, 2006, David E. Campbell, review of Failing Grades, p. 533.

Reference & Research Book News, November 1, 2005, review of Failing Grades.