Principal Investigators
Donald J. BoydDonald J. Boyd is a senior fellow and the former director of State and Local Government Finance research group. Boyd has over two decades of experience analyzing state and local fiscal issues, and has written or co-authored many of the program's reports on the fiscal climate in the 50 states. His previous positions include director of the economic and revenue staff for the New York State Division of the Budget and director of the tax staff for the New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Boyd holds a Ph.D. in managerial economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Pamela GrossmanPamela Grossman is the Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Education at Stanford University and the Faculty Director of the Center to Support Excellence in Teaching. Her research interests include teacher education and certification; English education, literacy, and literature; and professional development. Her current research focuses on classroom practice in middle-school English and Language Arts, pathways into teaching, and teacher-preparation programs for teachers, clergy, and clinical psychologists. Professor Grossman received a BA in English from Yale University, an MA in Instructional Research and Curriculum Design from the University of California at Berkeley, and both an EdS in Evaluation and a PhD in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University.
Hamilton LankfordDr. Lankford is an economist in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies. His research focuses on school finance, school choice, residential segregation in schools, and issues concerning student achievement in urban schools, particularly teacher training and how teachers get assigned to particular schools. His research fits well within CSDA’s emphasis on spatial inequality. His future plans include continuing to study the labor markets of teachers and pathways into the teaching profession.
Susanna LoebSusanna Loeb is the Barnett Family Professor of Education at Stanford University, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis, and a co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). She specializes in the economics of education and the relationship between schools and federal, state and local policies. Her research addresses teacher policy, looking specifically at how teachers' preferences affect the distribution of teaching quality across schools, how pre-service coursework requirements affect the quality of teacher candidates, and how reforms affect teachers' career decisions. She also studies school leadership and school finance, for example looking at how the structure of state finance systems affects the level and distribution of resources across schools. Susanna is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Policy Council of the Association for Policy Analysis and Management, and Co-Editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
James WyckoffJim Wyckoff is a Professor at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. He directs the Education Policy PhD program and the Center on Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness. He is a PI on grants from NSF and several foundations to explore policies on teacher preparation, recruitment and retention on the quality of the teaching workforce and outcomes for students. Wyckoff currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Children Eligible for School Nutrition Programs, the Scientific Review Panel of the U.S. Department of Education, the editorial board of Education Finance and Policy and on several advisory panels.
Research Associates
Karen HammernessKaren Hammerness is an Associate Professor and Director of Research at Bard College, and a Research Fellow with the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching Program. Prior to joining the Bard MAT faculty, Karen Hammerness has been involved in a number of research projects in teacher education, exploring the relationship of pedagogy and novice teacher’s learning, and policy and practice. From 1999-2003, she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Stanford University Teacher Education Program. From 2004-2009, she was a Senior Researcher on the “Does the Pathway Make a Difference?” Project. In addition, with colleagues at Brandeis University, she has been studying teacher education programs that focus upon preparing teachers for particular contexts such as urban public schools, and exploring the advantages of such focused preparation for new teachers, and their students. She recently returned from a year in Oslo, Norway where she was a Fulbright Fellow, studying teacher education in Norway, the Netherlands as well as in Finland. She has a B.A., Middlebury College, an M.Ed. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Morva McDonaldMorva McDonald is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Washington. Her scholarship, teaching, and research focus on teacher education and the preparation of teachers to work in hard to staff schools. Currently, she is coordinating field placements in community-based organizations for the elementary preservice teachers at the University of Washington and is conducting a longitudinal study on the implementation of this innovation across program components. She is also engaged in a research project with Cap Peck that investigates how teacher education programs engage performance assessment data of their candidates for programmatic learning and change. As a post doctoral researcher on the New York City Pathways Study of Teacher Education, she collaborated with a group of researchers to examine the relationships among the features of teacher preparation, teacher retention and outcomes in academic. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington, Morva was an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked as a public elementary school teacher in San Francisco, California. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Stanford University, and a B.A. from Tufts University.
Michelle ReiningerMichelle Reininger is an Assistant Professor (Research) and the Executive Director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis. She returns to Stanford, where she received a PhD in the economics of education and an MA in economics, from her position as an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and Learning Sciences at Northwestern University and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. At Northwestern, Reininger studied the dynamics of teacher and principal labor markets including preparation, recruitment, and retention. She is currently involved in two longitudinal studies of the career paths of teachers and principals in the Chicago Public School System. Her work has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the American Education Research Association, and the Joyce Foundation. A former chemistry teacher, Reininger has also received an MA in education policy from the University of Virginia.
Research Assistant
Matthew RonfeldtMatt Ronfeldt is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. He is interested in studying teacher education in ways that inform policy and practice. His current research focuses on identifying features of clinical training, including student teaching, that improve teacher quality and persistence, particularly in large, urban districts (Chicago, Miami, New York). Because he is interested in the development of teachers across their careers, Ronfeldt also studies teacher labor markets, including the causes and consequences of teacher turnover. He is currently examining the effects of teacher turnover on student achievement, though he has also studied the relationship between teacher quality and within-district transfer. Ronfeldt earned his PhD from Stanford University where he concentrated on teacher education, and also taught middle school mathematics and science for seven years.