George D. (George Drayton) Strayer

Born in 1876, George Drayton Strayer became an important American educator and scholar whose career was closely tied to Teachers College, Columbia University. He earned his Ph.D. at Columbia in 1906, studying school expenditures and the financial structure of city school systems, a subject that would remain central to his work.

Strayer wrote and edited books on teaching, school management, and educational measurement, helping bring a more systematic, research-based approach to public education. His publications and academic work focused on how schools were organized, how teachers worked in classrooms, and how school systems could be evaluated and improved.

He died in 1962, but his influence remained visible in the professional study of educational administration. For listeners interested in the history of American schooling, his work offers a window into a period when education was becoming a modern field of research as well as a public mission.