Department of Education

Christopher Cleveland

Assistant Professor of Education and Education Policy
christopher_cleveland1@brown.edu
Room 234
Research Profile
Spring 2026 Office Hours Wednesdays 4-5 PM

Biography

Dr. Christopher Cleveland is an Assistant Professor of Education and Education Policy, holding a joint appointment in the Education Department and Annenberg Institute. His research and teaching focus on quantitative policy analysis in school finance, gifted and special education, and human capital.

Before joining Brown University, Christopher was a Research Assistant Professor at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development and a Consulting Manager at Education Resource Strategies.

Christopher Cleveland has a Ph.D.  in Education Policy and Program Evaluation from Harvard University; an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Management from Harvard Graduate School of Education; an A.M. in Education from Harvard University; and an A.B. in Sociology with a Secondary in Mind, Brain, & Behavior from Harvard College.

Recent News

The 74

Wealthy Students More Likely to Get Disability Accommodations, Study Finds

Christopher Cleveland, an assistant professor of education and education policy, was coauthor of a study finding that participation in disability accommodation programs in K-12 schools skews heavily toward students from wealthier families.
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Sage Journals

IncreasED: How Court Rulings Impact Special Education Identification

Healthcare services outside of school can impact the likelihood of receiving school-based special education identification and services. Using Massachusetts administrative data on public school students, this paper employs the difference-in-differences method to examine the impacts of expanded Medicaid coverage for mental and behavioral healthcare resulting from the Rosie D. lawsuit of 2009. Rosie D. caused a 0.3 percentage point (15%) increase in emotional disorder (ED) identification among low-income grade 9–12 students. After Rosie D., students with ED were more likely to be Black or multiracial. Students were also more likely to have experienced suspension or chronic absenteeism before ED identification. Finally, students with ED in grades K–8 were educated in less inclusive settings.
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Sage Journals

The Effects of Teacher-Student Demographic Matching on Social-Emotional Learning

A growing body of research shows that students benefit when they demographically match their teachers. However, little is known about how matching affects social-emotional development. Professor Christopher Cleveland and his co-authors use student-fixed effects to exploit changes over time in the proportion of teachers within a school grade who demographically match a student to estimate the effect on social-emotional measures, test scores, and behavioral outcomes
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The Brown Daily Herald

RI education department releases special education blueprint amid federal funding cuts

The Rhode Island Department of Education recently released its "Blueprint & Strategic Plan for Differently-Abled Students’ Success." Professor Christopher Cleveland spoke with The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. about some of his 'kudos' and 'questions' regarding the plan.
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