Education policy

From cradle through career, education programs exist to help children and youth learn, grow, and succeed in school and in life. But how do decision makers know which interventions work? How can their investments address institutional and systemic inequalities in education?

Ford School faculty and staff use rigorous analytical methods to understand which policies, programs, and practices improve educational outcomes—and which do not. They use this data to partner with and empower community stakeholders, government agencies, and policymakers across the country to make informed decisions and create better results for students. And our faculty trains the next generation of education policy professionals to help create a brighter future.

Much of this work takes place within two education-focused research centers housed at the Ford School—the Education Policy Initiative and the Youth Policy Lab.

Research insights

U-M experts to examine cell phone policies in Michigan schools, effects on student well-being

RESEARCH TO WATCH WHAT’S THE STUDY: A multidisciplinary team of University of Michigan researchers has received a grant from Centers for Disease Contr...

Finish reading

In guest commentary for Bridge Michigan, Brian Jacob highlights findings from his recently released a rigorous, independent study commissioned by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE).

Learn more

Photo of a teacher and three young elementary school students around a classroom table

New research led by University of Michigan education economist Sarah Cohodes provides insights into how different K-12 educational environments shape college preparation, enrollment and graduation outcomes.

Read the study

News

View all

Policy engagement

HAIL scholarship

With just over 1,000 big, maize and blue envelopes, Susan Dynarski and Kathy Michelmore helped solve a problem that University of Michigan administrators struggled to fix for years — the gap between low- and high-income student enrollment. Over 40% of low-income students apply to non-selective universities, compared to 10% of their high-income counterparts. Now in its fifth year. the HAIL Scholarship has doubled the number of applications, admissions, and enrollment rates for low-income students at the University of Michigan, proving the envelopes to be successful.

Research from Megan Tompkins-Stange highlights the factors and philanthropic power behind how ideas move to policy and into public discourse.

In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education, Education Policy Initiative researchers study the program's impact and informs state policy.

Faculty expert

Brian Jacob

Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy; Professor of Public Policy, Economics, and Education; Co-director, Youth Policy Lab

Previously teaching middle school in Harlem and serving as a policy analyst in the NYC mayor’s office, Jacob’s interests lie in labor economics, program evaluation, and the economics of education. His current research focuses on urban school reform, with a particular emphasis on standards and accountability initiatives. He is consistently ranked among the top U.S. education policy influencers and is the Ford School's public policy analysis methods concentration faculty lead.

Read his profile

Next generation

Training in causal inference

In its first five years, the Causal Inference in Education Policy Research (CIEPR) program supported 22 interdisciplinary students, training them in a range of applied research methods. The CIEPR program prepares its doctoral students to evaluate the causal impacts of education programs and policies by teaching them how to design, implement, and analyze policy experiments as well as empirical data. Alumni of CIEPR have gone on to build and engage in powerful research partnerships with education systems across the country, including Los Angeles Unified School District and the Boston Public Schools.

Read about recent PhD graduates

Faculty expert

Christina Weiland

Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy

With a passion for public policy about children’s development and the effects of early childhood interventions, Christina Weiland’s projects revolve around the active ingredients that drive children’s success. Her work is characterized by strong, long-standing research collaborations with practitioners. Weiland is currently leading a five-year study of preschool to third-grade students in the Boston Public Schools, among other projects. She has received multiple prestigious awards, such as the 2018 Association for Education Finance and Policy Early Career Award.

Weiland's policy-driven research brings proven results to classrooms across the…

A powerful resource

Michigan Education Data Center

Does waiting a year to start kindergarten lead to better outcomes? What's the ROI of public schools? The Michigan Education Data Center (MEDC) houses 5 million education records from across the state of Michigan. More than 120 research projects use the data, focusing on early childhood education, school choice and mobility, literacy, P-20 pathways, and college success.

Learn more

Yellow and blue pencils diagonally bisect a colored background

A new study shows support services are more effective in improving reading scores than test-based retention policies.

Learn more

Illustration with a house and money symbols balanced on a scale

As policymakers ramp up efforts to hold higher education accountable for the financial outcomes of their graduates, new research from Ford School professor Kevin Stange and colleagues reveals a major complicating factor: college graduates don’t always stay put.

Learn more

Photo of a young child, held in the lap of an a guardian or teacher, reading a book

Educational Policy Initiative researchers study the implementation of high-quality, domain-specific Pre-K curricula for DC Public Schools.

Learn more

Faculty expert

Kevin Stange

Associate Professor of Public Policy

Before joining the Ford School, Stange was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at U-M. His research lies broadly in empirical labor and public economics, with a focus on education and health care. Stange has studied everything from the ties between college enrollment and persistence to the effects of different pricing structures on major choice and student credit load. His research has been featured in multiple popular media outlets like Time and Wall Street Journal.

Read his profile

At The Skillman Foundation, Ansari is part of a team that is grappling with how to improve the out-of-school youth programming in the city of Detroit.

“I’m so appreciative of the Ford School’s emphasis on the summer internship because it was so invaluable. The internship was the domino that set off the rest of my career. There’s no way I would have started MCAN or be where I am today without that experience.”

"My experience at Ford taught me to never accept any argument at face value and to always dig a bit deeper. The solutions are not easy — but they are there if we think critically and persevere."