Policy and Evaluation

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Education Policy and Evaluation

K-12 School Funding

Expenditures may not differ substantially across high- and low-performing schools. The way they are used, however, does. Compared to high-performers, low-performing schools are more likely to adopt pre-packaged instructional programming, are less likely to use data in everyday decisions, and are less successful in attracting and keeping the experienced personnel they sorely need.

- Patrice Iatarola, Ph.D.

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High School Reform

The state of Florida has been at the forefront of education experimentation and reform and a bellwether for other states and federal reform efforts for over four decades. This natural laboratory has been a powerful force in driving high-quality policy research throughout Florida State University’s College of Education.

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Merit aid policies that award students for performance in high school with aid for college may be working at odds with another priority near the top of the agendas of state and federal policy makers: increasing the flow of Americans into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

- Shouping Hu, Ph.D.

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Teacher Quality

Since the late 1980s, the nation has pursued a path of high standards and assessments to measure how well schoolchildren are meeting those standards. We now have a quarter century of policy experience and data to better identify the factors behind school success. Over that time, we scholars have come to demonstrate what parents have long suspected… that teachers represent the single largest schoolrelated influence on student achievement.

- Lora Cohen-Vogel, Ph.D.

www.fsu.edu/~elps

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Student Financial Aid

The Florida State University

College of Education Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies 1114 West Call Street 1209 Stone Building Tallahassee, FL 32306

High school test scores and graduation rates have barely budged since Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act. One reason to explain this is the slow progress in moving principals to focus their teachers on common learning goals.

- Tom Luschei, Ph.D.

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Education Policy and Evaluation

Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies

Faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in particular have been recognized for their theoretical and empirical work around a wide range of contemporary educational reform challenges in the state, nation and around the world.

Their research has drawn the attention of policymakers, foundations and academic programs throughout the U.S. for its application of highly nuanced and sophisticated analyses not just of the technical aspects of education policy but also the political, economic and institutional contexts in which policy is crafted, implemented and evaluated.

Faculty research is funded by federal, state and local governments, including the federal Institute of Educational Sciences and the Florida Department of Education as well as major foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates, Spencer and Wallace Foundations.

Research findings are widely reported in national media outlets, including National Public Radio, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Education Week, as well as in reports to the U.S. Congress and testimony to state legislatures.

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The Florida State University College of Education Education Policy and Evaluation Joseph Beckham, Ph.D., University of Florida

Allan Tucker Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Joe Beckham specializes in legal and policy issues influencing K-20 public education. He has served as chair of the department three times and was named Allan Tucker Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in 2001. His research interests include faculty and student rights, higher education governance and accountability, equity and the unintended impact of federal and state regulation.

Carolyn Herrington, Ph.D., University of Florida

Professor Director, Educational Policy Center at Learning Systems Institute Carolyn Herrington has worked extensively in the areas of school choice, school finance, accountability and comprehensive children’s services.

She most recently served as dean of the University of Missouri College of Education. She is the author of over 50 articles, chapters and policy reports investigating how policies and politics and policymakers and educational professionals interact to produce educational reform.

Tammy Kolbe, Ed.D., University of Vermont

Stacey Rutledge, Ph.D., University of Chicago

Tammy Kolbe’s research examines teacher staffing policies, particularly those focused on recruiting and retaining qualified teachers. An additional focus of her work is education finance and cost-effectiveness in providing programs and services for students with disabilities. Prior to coming to Florida State University, Dr. Kolbe was an AERA-IES Post-Doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Stacey Rutledge explores how policies aimed at improving teaching and learning affect the work of district and school administrators and teachers. Focused on the implementation of test-based accountability and teacher quality policies, her work has appeared in such journals as Teachers College Record, Leadership and Policy in Schools, and the American Journal of Education. Her books include “The Education Mayor and Systemwide Efforts to Improve Student Achievement”.

Linda Schrader, Ph.D., The Florida State University

Assistant Professor

Lora Cohen-Vogel, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Shouping Hu, Ph.D., Indiana University

Tom Luschei, Ph.D., Stanford University

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Lora Cohen-Vogel’s teaching and research focus on the political antecedents of education policy, and the governance structures that facilitate or impede policy adoption, implementation and effectiveness. With particular emphasis on teacher quality and comparative state politics, her articles appear in the American Journal of Educational Research, the American Journal of Education, Educational Administration Quarterly, and Educational Policy, among others.

Shouping Hu’s research interests examine college access and success, student engagement, and higher education policy. His more than thirty publications include articles in Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, Innovative Higher Education, and two higher education monographs for the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Tom Luschei holds a joint appointment between the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, where he leads the Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development. Dr. Luschei’s research examines the impact and availability of school resources – particularly high-quality teachers – in low-income and developing regions of the world.

Peter Easton, Ph.D., The Florida State University

Patrice Iatarola, Ph.D., New York University

Sande Milton, Ph.D., Cornell University

Associate Professor

Professor

Peter Easton has written two books on the evaluation of adult and nonformal education and numerous articles and reports on local development and democratization, and the linkages between training programs and labor markets. His current research projects look at the dynamics of local capacity building in developing countries and culturally-relevant forms of transformative adult learning.

Patrice Iatarola specializes in issues related to the equitable distribution of resources and the responses of schools and districts to policy initiatives as they relate to improving student achievement. With a focus on urban schools and high school reform, her work has been published in Education Finance and Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Educational Policy, among others.

Sande Milton specializes in the sociology and politics of education, policy studies, and quantitative research methodologies. His most recent work has appeared in the Review of Higher Education and Journal of Research in Childhood Education. He has served as Director of the Center for Policy Studies in Education in the College of Education and Chair of the Department.

Associate Professor

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Associate in Program Evaluation

Prior to coming to The Florida State University, Linda Schrader directed a national consulting firm for 15 years where she investigated the impact of federal and state reform initiatives in education and human service organizations. She has published numerous evaluation and policy studies for program directors, state legislatures and the federal courts. Her current research and teaching interests focus on evaluation policy, ethics in evaluation practice, and innovative applications of qualitative research methodologies.

For more information visit us online at www.fsu.edu/~elps.