Our new "Insight to Impact" series invites faculty from the Education Department to share how their recent research can be applied in practical ways that improve education systems. Here, we look at Professor Cleveland's research papers, "Understanding Individualized Education Program (IEP) Goals at Scale" and "The Effects of Response to Intervention on Disability Identification and Achievement."

Bilena Dabalen ‘25 and Morgan Isabell ‘26 both spent this summer researching the history of for-profit companies affecting public education as UTRA Research Assistants for Professor Tracy Steffes, Chair of the Department of Education.

In her new book, Professor Jin Li explores the philosophical origins of the concept of self in both Eastern and Western cultures and synthesizes her findings with cutting-edge psychological research to reveal a fundamental contrast.

Teacher strikes are tactics that unions use to influence contract negotiations and high-profile actions that have the potential to signal the need for policy change. Professor Matthew Kraft (Brown University) and co-author Melissa Arnold Lyon (UAlbany) studied the political economy of strikes by collecting original data on U.S. teacher strikes from 2007-2018.

A three-year study focused on the evaluation and improvement of teacher preparation programs aims to identify best practices among existing models of evaluation tools and provide recommendations for developing new models. Under the direction of an interdisciplinary steering committee that included Professor John Papay, the project outcomes will be made applicable and accessible to different stakeholders, including state and federal agencies, teacher preparation programs, practitioners, and researchers.

In examining the state of the U.S. K-12 teaching profession over the last half century, Matthew A. Kraft (Brown University) and Melissa Arnold Lyon (University at Albany) find that the current state of the teaching profession is at or near its lowest levels in 50 years. Kraft and Lyon identify and explore a range of hypotheses that might explain these historical patterns including economic and sociopolitical factors, education policies, and school environments.

Brown University's Department of Education is pleased to welcome Katie Rieser, who has joined the faculty as Director of the Master of Arts in Teaching program and a Senior Lecturer in Education. Katie's research connects teacher education pedagogy with anti-racist best practices in K-12 schools.