Michael Berkman is Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author (with Eric Plutzer) of Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America's School Districts (2005) and articles appearing in such journals as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, and PLoS Biology. He currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Education, and is a graduate of the Ardsley and the NY public school system. Eric Plutzer is Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University, where he also serves as the Academic Director of the Survey Research Center. A product of New York City's public schools, he has travelled widely, including as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Malaya and as a guest scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). In addition to Ten Thousand Democracies, he is the author of articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Geography, and many other journals. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Politics and Gender, American Politics Research, Social Science Quarterly, and the American Journal of Education.