Susan Moore Johnson is the Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she served as academic dean from 1993 to 1999. A former high school teacher who served in an administrative role as a teacher leader, Johnson has an ongoing research interest in the work of teachers and the reform of schools and school systems.
Johnson has written four books and many journal articles about teachers and their work. Teacher Unions in Schools (1984) focuses on the role of teachers unions in the day-to-day work of schools. Teachers at Work (1990) examines the school as a workplace for teachers. Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools (2006), written with colleagues at the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, centers on the experiences of new teachers. Subsequent research at the Project focuses on teachers’ careers, alternative preparation, the role of unions, hiring, induction, performance-based pay, teacher teams, and teacher evaluation. Johnson also is coauthor, with John P. Papay, of Redesigning Teacher Pay (2009).
Johnson has also written and consulted widely about educational leadership and management. Her 1996 book, Leading to Change: Challenges of the New Superintendency, analyzes the leadership practices of twelve newly appointed superintendents during their first six months in the role. Between 2007 and 2014, Johnson served as cochair of the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP), a collaboration between the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she and her colleagues wrote Achieving Coherence in District Improvement (2015), which examines the management relationship between the central office and schools in five large urban school districts.
Johnson serves on various advisory boards for organizations and publications. She is an inaugural fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education.
