Neal McCluskey is the director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. He is the author of the book The Fractured Schoolhouse: Reexamining Education for a Free, Equal, and Harmonious Society and is coeditor of several volumes, including School Choice Myths: Setting the Record Straight on Education Freedom and Unprofitable Schooling: Examining Causes of, and Fixes for, America’s Broken Ivory Tower. McCluskey also maintains Cato’s Public Schooling Battle Map, an interactive database of values and identity‐​based conflicts in public schools.

Prior to arriving at Cato, McCluskey was a policy analyst at the Center for Education Reform, taught high‐​school English, covered municipal government and education as a freelance reporter, and served in the U.S. Army.

McCluskey holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, where he double majored in government and English, has a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University, Newark, and holds a PhD in public policy from George Mason University.