David Whitman

David Whitman was the chief speech writer for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan from mid-2009 to November 2014. Prior to that, he covered social policy for U.S. News & World Report for nearly two decades, from 1985 to 2003. He is the author of the award-winning, “Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner City Schools and the New Paternalism” (Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2008), a two-year study of six high-performing inner-city secondary schools and their successful educational models. He has authored several other books, including “The Optimism Gap: The I'm OK-They're Not Syndrome and the Myth of American Decline” (Walker & Company, 1998) and the 2004 study, “The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption.” His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, the Atlantic, New Republic, and numerous other publications. Currently, he is president and founder of Whitman Wordsmithing and Communications. Whitman is a proud graduate of Amherst College, where he earned a B.A. in political science.