Patrick joined the faculty at Drew in 2005. He earned his Ph.D. in Government (and an M.Ed. in Education Policy) at the University of Virginia. Patrick did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University in 2003-2004, was a visiting professor of government at Colby College in 2004-2005, and was a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2007. During the 2009-2010 academic year, he will be a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Prior to graduate school, Patrick worked for the Institute for Strategy Development, a political consulting firm in Washington, DC, and spent three years as a high school government and history teacher in Maryland.

His first book, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy 1965-2005, was published by the University Press of Kansas in June 2006 and was selected by the American Library Association as an "Outstanding Academic Book."

His work has been published in Perspectives on Politics, The Journal of Policy History, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, The Public Interest, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, and Governance. He has contributed chapters to: Conservatism and American Political Development, No Remedy Left Behind, Educational Entrepreneurship, and The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberalism.