In an August 6 article in “The Upshot,” The New York Times' curated blog on politics, policy, and economics, Susan Dynarski describes the perils of mistaking correlation for causation.In the article, Dynarski critiques a recent paper by Esther M....
Over three decades of service, Founding Dean Ned Gramlich helped shape the Ford School's mission and vision, and served as an exemplar of what it means to be a world-class policy professor. He conducted extensive and widely-respected research, both...
Peter Borish applies analytics and creativity to for-profit and not-for-profit endeavors alike
"I was like every other kid," says Peter Borish (AB '81, MPP '82). "When I was growing up, I wanted to become a professional baseball player."
Like...
When Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA), wanted to document the economic impact of her organization and others like it around the state of Michigan last fall, she sought help from the Ford...
In a State of Opportunity broadcast, Brian Jacob discusses the impact of high stakes testing, particularly for low-income students and school districts. High stakes testing refers to standardized tests with results that have important consequences...
Latesha Love (MPP '02) was two weeks into her second year of graduate school in Ann Arbor, getting dressed for class and watching the news with an absent-minded interest, when she realized that "something was really, really, really wrong." It was...
Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy and co-director of the Education Policy Initiative, has received a $200,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation to study the effectiveness of online learning in the K-12...
As part of "Educational Pathways and Employment Outcomes of Community College Students," a major research project led by Peter Bahr, Susan M. Dynarski and Brian A. Jacob, the Education Policy Initiative (EPI) held a dialogue on Wednesday, May 7, at...
In an era of shrinking public education budgets, school districts cannot afford to make the wrong decision when they hire a teacher or cut a program. To make sure they reach the right answers, administrators are turning to Annenberg Professor Brian...
This Saturday, John Chamberlin will board a plane for Paris. He's gearing up for new adventures in retirement. Over the past four decades, he's taught more core courses than any other faculty member at the school, served as interim and associate...
A new paper by Brian A. Jacob, Brian P. McCall, and Kevin M. Stange, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is receiving attention from The Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications for its analysis of the pressure facing...
International development interns put ideas to work
One block down Hill Street, just west of State, is Ali Baba's, a small Middle Eastern restaurant with habit-forming grape leaves and baklava. Any day of the week, you're sure to find a table, or...
Michigan significantly raised the bar for its Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) last year, and the first test results are in: many students and schools have a long way to go to meet the new standards, according to an article in the...
The Muskegon Chronicle reported on a study co-authored by Brian A. Jacob that suggested pushing back middle school and high school start times would improve student performance.The Hamilton Project, a Brookings Institution study Jacob co-authored...
Susan M. Dynarski and Brian A. Jacob received a $250,000 grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation to study charter schools in Michigan.
Over the next two years Dynarski and Jacob will conduct a rigorous, Michigan-wide analysis of the effect of...
Brian Jacob was quoted in a USA Today article called "When test scores seem too good to believe."The article discusses the findings of a USA Today investigation of the standardized test scores of students from six U.S. states—including Michigan—and...
According to new research by Brian Jacob, public school teachers took less time off when principals had more flexibility to dismiss them without completing elaborate documentation or attending a hearing.Two papers authored by Jacob examined a policy...
In nearly eight years, the federal No Child Left Behind school reforms have become perhaps the most controversial yet far-reaching educational policies of the past four decades. Opponents are turning their fire on No Child now that it is up for...
Each spring, Ford School faculty and staff nominate dozens of outstanding student research and service projects for recognition at the Gramlich Showcase of Student Work. Established in 2008 to honor internationally renowned economist and former Ford School dean, Ned Gramlich, this event features exceptional student work on a broad range of local, national, and international policy challenges.
Join the Center for Racial Justice in welcoming Dr. Clarence Wardell III, Senior Program Officer on the Economic Mobility and Opportunity team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for a virtual workshop on the importance of service design in ensuring equitable access to key government programs.
Join us as we welcome Dr. Ruha Benjamin to campus to discuss her newest book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. In this talk, Dr. Benjamin draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces a micro-vision of change—a way of looking at the everyday ways people are working to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on decolonizing development with Farah Mahesri, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this interactive 3-hour session, we will collectively explore what a decolonized space or a decolonized approach for global development actually look like. How can we structure our organizations and our programs to draw to center more liberatory practices and help us radically re-imagine global development?
The Next Generation Undergraduate Success Measurement Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is an exploratory project to develop and implement a state-of-the-art measurement project to improve our understanding of the value of undergraduate educational experiences, and promote evidence-based models of undergraduate student success.
In an exploratory project funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ithaka S+R developed a novel approach to measuring a liberal arts and sciences educational experience, and examining its relationship with student outcomes.
The objective of the North American Colloquium is to provide a forum that strengtens a wider North American Conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the US. Colloquium will allow for distinct internal/regional and indigenous perspectives within each country to be showcased.
