JACK D. FOSTER, Ph.D.
Dr. Jack D. Foster
founded and was Director of the Center for Strategic Policy Studies in
Lexington, Kentucky, a private public policy consulting firm, from 1991 to
1999. The Center provided information, research and consultation services to
state and federal policy makers who want to redirect governmental services. He
was Chairman of the Board and Vice President of the National Education
Telecommunications Organization and a member of the Board of Directors of the
Education Satellite Corporation in Washington, D. C. from 1991 to 1993. He also
served on the Board of Trustees of the University of Kentucky from 1991 to
1992. He was an interim member of the Fayette County Public School Board in
Lexington, Kentucky in 1999. In September 1999 he published Redesigning
Public Education: The Kentucky Experience, a book that documents the
history and implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990.
From January 1988
until December 1991, Dr. Foster was Secretary of the Education and Humanities
Cabinet of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He was the education policy advisor to
Governor Wallace G. Wilkinson and had administrative responsibility over seven
state agencies. He wass recognized for his leadership in education reform in
Kentucky and at the national level. He was a member of the Task Force on
Education Reform that drafted the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990. He
also was a member of Kentucky's Council on School Performance Standards and the
Council for Education Technology. He also served on the special committee that
selected the first Commissioner of Education for Kentucky. In April 1991 Dr.
Foster published If I Could Make a School in which he set forth the
policy perspectives that underlie the Kentucky Education Reform Act.
Prior to his
appointment as a Cabinet Secretary for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Dr.
Foster, together with H. Milton Patton, was a managing partner in State
Research Associates, a national consulting firm they created in September 1979.
He also was a Senior Fellow in Social Policy at The Academy for Contemporary
Problems in Columbus, Ohio, from 1979 to 1981. As a managing partner in State
Research Associates, Dr. Foster directed or was a major participant in projects
dealing with public education reform, structure and governance of higher
education, vocational education policy, criminal sentencing policy, management
of a state children and family service agency, evaluation of the national
corrections accreditation process, interstate placement of children, state
subsidies for juvenile delinquency services, a state strategy for program
monitoring and evaluation, policy review of the appropriateness of juvenile
courts providing direct services to children in their custody, enterprise
development in the Appalachian Region, and an evaluation of the impact of
workforce reduction in state mental health agencies and state responses to
problems created by a reduction in the workforce.
From 1974 to 1979,
Dr. Foster was on the research staff of The Council of State Governments in
Lexington, Kentucky, where he directed $1 million of research projects on
public policy problems in the criminal justice field. Topics researched
included criminal justice planning, status offenders and de-institutionalization,
corrections organization and management, sentencing reform, and state
subsidization of local corrections services. In 1977 he was named Director of
the Council's Office of Research, an administrative post he held for two years.
As Director of Research he was responsible for development and general
management of the Council's entire interdisciplinary policy research and
information program.
From 1960 to 1974,
while on the faculty of Youngstown State University in Ohio, Dr. Foster
established a professional reputation as both a scholar and administrator. A
member of both the undergraduate and graduate faculties, he was accorded the
University's Distinguished Professor Award, named to Who's Who in the Midwest,
and inducted into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi; served 5 years as a
department chairman; and was a member of the University Senate, chairing
several major faculty and administrative committees. His published works cover
a variety of topics ranging from an assessment of the impact of social labeling
on criminal careers to evaluations of law enforcement and correctional
programs. In addition to his University duties, Dr. Foster advised state and
local criminal justice officials on such matters as personnel training,
cost-benefit analyses, program evaluations, and the administration of crime
control programs. In the midÄ60's he was a senior advisor to the presiding
judge of the Mahoning County (Ohio) Juvenile Court where he helped bring about
substantial reform in court and detention practices, supervised the Court's
research program, and developed a variety of experimental treatment procedures
and programs for controlling delinquent behavior. In 1974 he prepared the
program specifications for a new $4 million Juvenile Justice Center facility
for the county.
Dr. Foster began
his career as a clergyman in the Evangelical Congregational Church serving
pastorates from 1950 to 1960 in Akron and Youngstown, Ohio. Under his
leadership both congregations experienced significant growth and undertook
extensive building programs. He also held various official positions in the
denomination at regional and national levels.
Dr. Foster earned a
doctorate in sociology at The Ohio State University (1971) after earning
Bachelor (1953) and Master of Arts (1959) degrees in philosophy and sociology
at Kent State University. His areas of professional interest and expertise are
social psychology, social research, policy development and implementation, and
intergovernmental relations. Dr.
Foster's professional and research activities have brought him into frequent
contact with local, state and federal officials. He has personally visited all
50 states and has conducted research in most of them. Over the years he has
consulted with, interviewed, and addressed hundreds of federal, state and local
officials and organizations.