Dr. James W. Guthrie is a presidential fellow and professor of Education Policy at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Previously he was the first gubernatorially appointed superintendent of public instruction for the State of Nevada. Prior to that, he was the first appointed senior fellow and director of Education Policy Studies at the George W. Bush Institute, a component of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, located on the Southern Methodist University campus (SMU) in Dallas, Texas.

James formerly was the Patricia and Rodes Hart professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. From 1999 through 2009, he served as chair of Peabody College's Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, the nation's highest ranked university educational administration department. Previously a professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 27 years, James holds a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and undertook postdoctoral study in public finance at Harvard. 
 
James has been a consultant to the governments of Armenia, Australia, Chile, Guyana, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Romania and South Africa, and has had extensive experience in consulting for The World Bank, UNESCO, OECD and the Organization of American States. He is the author or co-author of 20 books, and more than 200 professional and scholarly articles. He is past president of the American Education Finance Association, former vice president of the American Education Research Association, served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Education, published in 2002, and is series editor of the multi-volume Peabody Education Leadership Series.