About Regina H. Paul, President
Ms. Paul has developed curricula and assessments, designed and conducted formative and summative program evaluations, trained teachers and administrators, facilitated community meetings, conducted site visits, prepared oral and written reports, directed the work of other staff, and managed the budget for over 250 projects at Policy Studies in Education (PSE), where she is now president. Her projects at PSE have covered a wide range of topics, including K–12 curriculum and student assessment in every subject, program development and evaluation, parent engagement, school board policy making, administrative organization, public and professional opinion surveying, and adult and higher education.
Ms. Paul served as the editor-in-chief for School Steps (and its various state versions)—a set of curriculum objectives for grades K-12 in English, mathematics, science, and social studies—that has been used in over 200 school districts. She also served as editor-in-chief of the Ohio Parallel/Preliminary Proficiency Tests (tests parallel to the State tests and used in over 250 school districts in Ohio) and the Michigan Diagnostic Series (criterion-referenced test item banks used in over 100 schools in Michigan).
She also served as the creator and editor-in-chief for I Can Be . . ., a series of K–8 multicultural curriculum units that infuse knowledge and attitudes about the world of work into core instruction in the academic subjects, and as the creator and editor-in-chief for ArtWorks, a series of K–5 curriculum units that integrate national standards in visual art, music, dance, theatre, language arts, and social studies into units to be taught by regular classroom teachers.
Ms. Paul has carried out projects on site in over 100 school districts (working shoulder-to- shoulder with teachers, administrators, and school board members) and in over 100 colleges in many states. She has also designed and carried out statewide studies for state education departments and nationwide studies for professional associations.
In the area of program evaluation, Ms. Paul has carried out evaluations of over 100 educational programs, sponsored by the federal government, state education departments, local school districts, foundations, and other nonprofit organizations. The topics of these evaluations have included career and technical education, small learning communities, activities of community-based organizations, internship programs, special education, desegregation, and the arts.
Concentrating her work from 2008 to 2013 in New York City, Ms. Paul co-designed, co-founded, and then managed an Early College STEM public high school. She was instrumental in obtaining a $1 million grant from a private foundation to support the school’s opening and its development. The school’s innovative structure included a schedule that allowed its academically average and below-average public school students (80 percent low-income students, 95 percent students of color, 75 percent first-generation-to-college students) to graduate in just three years instead of four. The school was designated as a model for the State of New York.
In addition to project work, Ms. Paul has served as a consultant to the federal government, state boards of education, state education departments, and foundations and has spoken at many national and statewide meetings of school board members and school administrators (superintendents, curriculum directors, and principals), most frequently on topics concerning curriculum, evaluation, and policy making. She has organized and given presentations at the national conventions and special training conferences of the American Association of School Administrators, the American Educational Research Association, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the National School Boards Association.
She co-authored Curriculum and Assessment Policy: 20 Questions for Board Members and Time for Curriculum, two books on curriculum and evaluation for school board members. She also co-authored the Educational Goals Survey kit, published by the National School Boards Association, and Determining Validity and Reliability of Locally Developed Assessments, published by the Illinois State Board of Education. She has had articles published in Educational Leadership, Foreign Language Annals, and Updating School Board Policies.
Recently for three years, she wrote and cohosted USACollegeChat, a free weekly podcast for high school students and parents who are navigating the world of college applications and admissions. Simultaneously, she co-authored two books for her podcast audience—How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students and How To Find the Right College: A Workbook for Parents of High School Students.
Ms. Paul earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.A. in Curriculum from Teachers College, Columbia University. She also holds secondary English teaching certification.