After receiving a B.S. in elementary education from Penn State, he taught at both the pre-k and 2nd grade levels in Athens, GA. His subsequent experiences teaching in schools that served students from low SES backgrounds had a significant influence on his interest in children’s early literacy development and academic motivation. Quirk’s post-graduate work at the University of Georgia focused on the interplay between the development of students’ early reading skills and their motivation for engaging in reading related activities. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in Educational Psychology, he spent two years as an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Reading program at California State University, Long Beach where he taught courses on reading assessment and instruction as well as courses on research methods and quantitative statistics.