Patrick Schuermann, Ed.D.

Dr. Patrick Schuermann is one of the nation’s leading experts in educator compensation. Following a career spanning elementary, middle and high school teaching, tutoring, coaching and leading in both independent and public schools, Patrick’s doctoral dissertation at Vanderbilt University, “An Integrated Approach to Professional Development, Faculty Evaluation, and Compensation: Resources for Independent School Leaders”, allowed him to visit independent school campuses across the country to explore innovative and creative approaches to cultivating mission-aligned human capital development systems.

Following its completion in 2006, Patrick served as a founding Director for the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Educator Compensation Reform that oversaw the federally funded Teacher Incentive Fund program. In this capacity, Patrick worked with a talented team of multidisciplinary experts to provide support to some of our nation’s largest and most complex school districts (such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami), and an array of rural districts, charter schools and State departments of Education, with the design and implementation of their innovative compensation systems for educators and school leaders.

During this time, Patrick and the research team published multiple guidebooks and research reports to support innovative compensation system design. In his role as the Director of Policy for the Center, and with the support of the Aspen Institute, Patrick worked with a team of content experts to support members of the House and Senate Committees crafting our country’s policy agenda around compensation reform. Concurrently, with support from the Gates Foundation, Patrick led a team of education and technology experts in the development of multimedia resources to help district and school leadership teams navigate the work of compensation system renovation.

In 2022, with generous support from the E.E. Ford Foundation, and in close collaboration with the talented team at NBOA, Patrick served as the lead researcher for the Mission-Anchored Compensation Strategies project - the most comprehensive assessment of compensation and benefits practices used in our independent school community to date. The deliverables from this research synthesize insights from over 400 schools, across 44 states and 8 countries, and leveraged survey, focus group, interview and site-visit data. To support schools in the work of leveraging these findings in a collaborative process of reflecting on and renovating their compensation systems, Patrick launched Strategic Compensation and Coaching Partners - a diversely talented team of specialist with expertise in various facets of human capital development.  

And now, Patrick is excited to collaborate with NBOA Advisory Services to leverage our collective expertise to support independent schools in the work of mission-anchored growth.

Originally from Winter Park, Florida and presently residing in Nashville, Tennessee, Patrick holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from Furman University and a Doctorate in Education Leadership and Public Policy from Vanderbilt University.