David Harold Kurtzman (January 11, 1904 – February 22, 1977) was the fourteenth chancellor (1966–1967) of the University of Pittsburgh, and the last Superintendent of Public Instruction and first Secretary of Education (1967–1971) of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"[2] He was appointed acting chancellor after Stanton Crawford's sudden death of a heart attack seven months later, on January 26, 1966.

Although he did not start high school until the age of nineteen, he finished in under two years, and subsequently earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from Temple University and an M.A.

There, he served as a key aide to David L. Lawrence, mayor of Pittsburgh, and Richard King Mellon, financier, in their effort to build the city's first renaissance after World War II.

[3] After his time at Pitt, Kurtzman returned to Harrisburg in 1967 as State Superintendent of Public Instruction (later Secretary of Education) under Governors Raymond P. Shafer and Milton Shapp;[1] in this role he became the named respondent in the landmark US Supreme Court decision Lemon v. Kurtzman.