Lawrence O. Picus
University of Southern California
About the Author
Dr. Lawrence O. Picus is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Southern California (USC). He is the director of the Center for Research in Education Finance (CREF), a School of Education research center whose purpose is to study issues of school finance and productivity in the wake of the recent school reform movement. He is also the president of the American Education Finance Association.In his role with CREF, Dr. Picus is involved with studies of how educational resources are allocated and used in schools across the United States. He also has conducted studies on the impact of incentives on school district performance and is a member of a number of professional organizations dedicated to improving school district management.
Dr. Picus is the co-author of School Finance: A Policy Perspective (McGraw-Hill, 1992) with Allan Odden, and of Principles of School Business Administration (ASBO, 1995) with R. Craig Wood, David Thompson, and Don I. Tharpe. In addition, he is the editor of the 1995 yearbook of the American Education Finance Association, Where Does the Money Go? Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools (Corwin, 1995).
Prior to coming to USC, Dr. Picus spent four years at the RAND Corporation where he worked on a number of research projects including a major study of the effects of intergovernmental grants on local school district expenditure patterns. From 1977 to 1983, Dr. Picus was a principal investigator for the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's Center for State Policy Studies, and conducted a number of studies on issues of concern to chief state school officers in the Northwest and Hawaii. He was also the principal investigator for a number of school district specific studies concerning management issues such as management information systems, pupil transportation, school facility usage and strategic planning.
Dr. Picus earned a Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School. In addition, he holds a master's degree in social science from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor's degree in economics from Reed College. He has a strong background in research design, statistics and econometrics, and is an expert in the application of microcomputers.
