GARY ORFIELD - Professor of Education and Social Policy, Harvard University Graduate School of Education and Director of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard

Professor Orfield is interested in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. He is Co-Founder and Director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, an initiative that is developing and publishing a new generation of research on multiracial civil rights issues. Orfield's central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. Recent works include studies of changing patterns of school desegregation and the impact of diversity on the educational experiences of law students. In addition to his scholarly work, Orfield has been involved with development of governmental policy and has served as an expert witness in court cases related to his research. In 1997, Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his "contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research." A native Minnesotan, Orfield received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and travels annually to Latin America, where his research work is now expanding.

LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND - Professor of Education, Stanford University and Co-Director of the School Re-Design Network

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, where she has launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network. Professor Darling-Hammond has also served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. Prior to Stanford, Darling-Hammond was William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. There, she was the founding Executive Director of the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future, the blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, catalyzed major policy changes across the United States to improve the quality of teacher education and teaching. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of teaching quality, school reform, and educational equity. Among her more than 200 publications is The Right to Learn, recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998, and Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes), recipient of the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000.

ANGELA VALENZUELA - Professor and Director, Texas Center for Education Policy, University of Texas at Austin

Angela Valenzuela is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Administration at the University of Texas at Austin.  She is also the director of the newly formed Texas Center for Education Policy, a university-wide policy center at the University of Texas at Austin.  A Stanford University graduate, her previous teaching positions were in Sociology at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1990-98), as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston (1998-99). Her research and teaching interests are in the sociology of education, minority youth in schools, educational policy, and urban education reform.  She is also the author of Subtractive Schooling: U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (State University of New York Press, 1999) and editor of Leaving Children Behind:  How “Texas-style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth (State University of New York Press, 2004).

CHRISTOPHER SWANSON - Director, Editorial Projects in Education Research Center and Editor of Diplomas Count

Christopher B. Swanson, Ph.D., is the director of the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.  In this capacity, he oversees a staff of full-time researchers who conduct annual policy surveys, collect data, and perform analyses that appear in the Quality Counts and Technology Counts annual reports.  The center also contributes data and analysis to special coverage in Education Week, Teacher Magazine, and edweek.org. 

The EPE Research Center is working on a four-year project to examine graduation rates and related issues facing the nation’s high schools.  Diplomas Count: An Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates.

MARIA ROBLEDO MONTECEL - Executive Director, Intercultural Development Research Association

Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel is executive director of the Intercultural Development Research Association, an independent, private non-profit organization dedicated to equity and excellence in education. A nationally-recognized expert on the prevention and recovery of dropouts, Dr. Robledo Montecel directed the first statewide study of dropouts in Texas. Under her leadership, IDRA’s innovative dropout prevention program, the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program, has made a visible difference in the lives of more than 419,000 children, families and educators. Dr. Robledo Montecel has authored and co-authored a number of publications focusing on effective bilingual education, school holding power, and parent leadership. Dr. Robledo Montecel holds a bachelor of social work degree from Our Lady of the Lake University and a master’s degree in educational evaluation from Antioch College. She earned a doctorate in research and evaluation from the Urban Education program at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. She has been named among the top 100 Hispanic influentials by Hispanic Business magazine.

LINDA McSPADDEN McNEIL - Professor of Education, Rice University, and Co-Director of the Center for Education

Dr. Linda McNeil has been studying Texas schools for more than 20 years and was among the first to write about the numbers of youth being lost from our schools.  She is the author of Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge, on the effects of educational bureaucracies on teaching and learning.  Her second book, Contradictions of School Reform: The Educational Costs of Standardized Testing, released in 2000, is having a strong impact on public understanding of the consequences of legislated standardized testing. Dr. McNeil has written extensively on teaching and learning in urban schools, on school organization, and on policy and standardization. 

STEPHEN KLINEBERG - Professor of Sociology, Rice University

A graduate of Haverford College near Philadelphia, Professor Stephen Klineberg received an M.A. in Psychopathology from the University of Paris and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard. After teaching at Princeton, he joined Rice University's Sociology Department in 1972.

In March 1982, he and his students initiated the annual "Houston Area Survey." Supported by a consortium of local foundations, corporations and individuals, the surveys have been expanded in recent years to include large numbers of Anglos, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.

The recipient of nine major teaching awards at Rice, Professor Klineberg has recently published a 48-page report, entitled Public Perceptions in Remarkable Times: Tracking Change Through 24 Years of Houston Surveys. He is also at work on a book that will cover the first quarter-century of the Houston research, exploring through systematic surveys the way the general public is responding to the economic, demographic, and environmental challenges of our time.

DAN LOSEN- Senior Education Law and Policy Associate, Harvard University

Daniel J. Losen (J.D., M.Ed.) is a Senior Education Law and Policy Associate with The Civil Rights Project. His work at CRP concerns the impact of federal, state, and local education law and policy on students of color.  His most recent efforts have focused on addressing the school to prison pipeline, on implementation concerns about the No Child Left Behind Act, and on racial inequity in special education. 

Related written work includes: a chapter, “Graduation Rate Accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act and the Disparate Impact on Children of Color,” for the book, Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis, a law review article, “Challenging Racial Disparities: The Promise and Pitfalls of the No Child Left Behind Act's Race-conscious Accountability” published in Howard Law Journal, and co-authoring the national report, “Losing Our Future, How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind By The Graduation Rate Crisis,” released jointly in 2004 with the Urban Institute and Advocates for Children of New York.  

ROBERT BALFANZ- Research Scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University

Robert Balfanz is a research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. He is the Co-Director of the Talent Development Middle and High School Project, which is currently working with over 100 high poverty secondary schools to develop, implement and evaluate comprehensive whole school reforms. His work focuses on translating research findings into effective reforms for high poverty  secondary schools. He has published widely on secondary school reform, high school dropouts, and instructional interventions in high poverty schools. Recent work includes, Locating the Dropout Crisis, with co-author Nettie Legters in which they identify the number and location of high schools with high dropout rates. Dr. Balfanz is currently the lead investigator on a Middle School Dropout Prevention project in collaboration with the Philadelphia Education Fund. Dr. Balfanz is also the Co-Operator of the Baltimore Talent Development High School, a Baltimore City Public School System Innovation High School.  Recent work and additional data on Locating the Dropout Crisis can be found at the his website- www.gradgap.org

JULIAN VASQUEZ-HEILIG - Assistant Professor of Education Administration, University of Texas at Austin

Julian Vasquez Heilig has held a variety of research and practitioner positions in organizations from Boston to Beijing. His current research includes quantitatively examining how high-stakes testing and accountability-based reforms and incentive systems impact urban minority students. Additionally, his qualitative work considers the sociological mechanisms by which student achievement and progress occur in relation to specific NCLB-inspired accountability policies in districts and schools for students of different kinds. Julian's research interests also include issues of access, diversity, and equity in higher education.

EILEEN COPPOLA - Researcher and Lecturer in Education, Rice University

Dr. Eileen Coppola received an Ed.D. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2000 in the area of Administration, Policy, and Social Planning in the Urban Superintendency doctoral program. She previously completed an M.A. at Columbia University Teachers College in Instructional Technology, taught in the public schools in New York City, and worked in administrative roles in Philadelphia and Boston. Her research addresses the complex relationships between policy, organization, culture, and schooling. Her case study of an Annenberg-funded reforming school documents the challenge of instructional improvement in the context of a conflicting school policy environment.

JUDY RADIGAN - Researcher and Lecturer in Education, Rice University

Dr. Judy Radigan received her Ph.D. from the University of Houston in Educational Psychology. She is devoted to researching the lives of children and equity for them in the public education system, and is currently researching the dropout problem in urban and suburban high schools. She has recently completed a study in which juniors in a high-poverty Latino high school and Rice University undergraduates learned ethnographic research techniques for a joint investigation of Latino youth dropping out or staying in school. Dr. Radigan and the student research team presented their findings at a city-wide summit on Houston’s critical dropout problem. The high-school researchers were then featured in a locally televised half-hour documentary.