STONY BROOK, N.Y. — On July 27, 2005, President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate Mark S. Schneider to be Commissioner of Education Statistics at the Department of Education, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring June 20, 2009. Dr. Schneider is a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook, currently on leave.

As Commissioner, Schneider would head the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The Center is designed to collect, analyze, and report statistical data related to education in the United States and other nations. Dr. Schneider currently serves as Deputy Commissioner of the National Center for Education Research, the Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education.

According to Jeffrey Segal, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, "As much as anyone, Mark Schneider was responsible for turning the Stony Brook Political Science department into the nationally renown department it is today. He did this through his exceptional leadership over 18 years, and just as importantly, as a tremendously influential scholar of public policy."

Earlier in his career, Dr. Schneider served as Vice President of the American Political Science Association. He received his bachelor's degree from City University of New York in 1967, and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1974. He later served as a Fulbright Hays Senior Fellow at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. He has been a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook since 1986.

Dr. Schneider is a recent co-author of Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools (with Paul Teske and Melissa Marschall), which examines comtemporary debates involving school choice (such as the use of vouchers), and also analyzes parental decision-making and their involvement in education, often considering issues of race and class.