Heather Peske is the former director of teacher quality at The Education Trust, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization whose mission is to close achievement gaps that separate low-income students and students of color from other youth.

Dr. Peske and Kati Haycock coauthored the report, “Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality.” She is also a coauthor of the book, Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools (Jossey-Bass, 2004) and the lead author on several articles on new teachers’ experiences. Dr. Peske recently co-authored a national study on alternative certification, A Difficult Balance: Incentives and Quality Control in Alternative Certification.

Dr. Peske is a former member of the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as an Editorial Board Member of the Harvard Education Review. She started her career in education as a fourth-grade teacher. She was awarded the distinction of “Teacher of the Year.” Peske received her doctoratal degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.