Peter Cunningham

Peter Cunningham is the founder of Education Post and serves on its board. He served as Assistant Secretary for communications and outreach in the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration’s first term. Prior to that he worked with Arne Duncan when he was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. Peter is affiliated with Whiteboard Advisors, a DC-based education policy, research and communications firm. He serves on several non-profit boards, including Oakland-based Great Schools, which provides school quality information to parents through a national online platform, The Montessori School of Englewood, a Chicago public charter school, Manufacturing Renaissance, a career education program that trains public high school students for jobs in manufacturing, Unbounded, an organization supporting teachers in schools that are transitioning to higher standards, and Foolproofme.com, which is focused on financial literacy for students. Peter founded Cunningham Communications, serving public, private and nonprofit clients, worked for political consultant David Axelrod, and was a senior advisor and speechwriter for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. A native New Yorker, Peter began his career as a journalist with small weekly newspapers in New York. He earned an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in philosophy from Duke University. He is married to artist Jackie Kazarian, and they have two adult children who are proud graduates of the Chicago Public Schools. Peter joined the Education Post board in 2018 after stepping down as the organization's Executive Director. Meet our board →

Posts By Peter Cunningham

Teaching

The Atlantic Shoots an Airball on Its Coverage of LeBron’s New School

I’m a fan of Atlantic writer Alia Wong and her stewardship of the magazine’s education coverage, even if it does seem to tilt against reform. But her recent piece on the new I PROMISE school created...

School Choice

How the New York Times Got It Wrong on School Choice and Segregation

After a much needed break from all things education, I returned to find an op-ed in the New York Times from Antioch University writing professor Erin Aubry Kaplan about school choice. I hate arguing...

student achievement

Coffee Break: How Arthur VanderVeen Is Lighting a Spark Under PARCC

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is a standardized test developed with federal funding to determine if students are meeting the Common Core State...

A Career and Technical Education Program That Is Getting Kids Jobs

Across the Chicago region and the Rust Belt, thousands of small to medium-sized manufacturing firms have been soldiering on through decades of outsourcing and disinvestment. Many are led by aging...

Parents

Coffee Break: Oakland's Lakisha Young Is Done Waiting for Superman and Ready for Parents to Take the Lead

Lakisha Young is executive director of The Oakland REACH. She has dedicated her career to promoting access to quality schools because she knows firsthand that a good education changes lives....

School Funding

After Janus, Unions Need to Give Teachers a Reason to Opt In and I Hope They Give Them One

I embraced education reform to strengthen schools, not to weaken unions, so I am not especially happy about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME. The net effect of the ruling will be to...