John English on COVID funding: Especially during the CARES Act rollout, there was an urgency to distribute funding very quickly. I was part of the effort to understand the complex formula for allocation, and to collaborate with ED attorneys, budget...
The Ford School is proud of its record of welcoming policymakers-in-residence. This past year, Ford School professor Kevin Stange played a different role – academic-in-residence. He had a one-year assignment working in the U.S. Department of...
As the first chief economist in the U.S. Department of Education, Ford School alumnus Jordan Matsudaira (PhD ’05), seeks to identify and implement policies that best promote student success—academically and financially—in higher education. Ford...
What are the skills that employers expect college graduates to bring to the job? A new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from Ford School professor Kevin Stange and doctoral candidate Shawn Martin, along with two other colleagues,...
Over a five-year period, Reading Partners and third-party education program evaluator, MDRC, will receive $8 million in Education Innovation and Research (EIR) funding through the U.S. Department of Education in order to expand Reading Partners’...
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education has renewed a 5-year, $4.6 million grant to support the University of Michigan's Education Policy Initiative Training Program in Causal Inference in Education Policy...
What are the effects of high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) on students’ future career and economic prospects? It is a question that is increasingly important as students face insecurity in the labor force and the so-called...
In a May 6 “Economic View” column for The New York Times, "The wrong way to fix student debt," Susan Dynarski describes three recent regulatory changes that are “making student loans riskier, more expensive and more burdensome for borrowers.”The...
In "How the U.S. Department of Education can foster education reform in the era of Trump and ESSA," Brian Jacob describes Michigan's disappointing performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. According to Jacob's analysis,...
The Ford School community will welcome former Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council James Kvaal as a Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence this fall.
The White House announced Mr. Kvaal's departure this morning,...
Last week, Brian Jacob, Susan Dynarski and two colleagues from Michigan State released a new paper, "Are expectations alone enough? Estimating the effect of a mandatory college-prep curriculum in Michigan." The paper examines the effect of the 2006...
The University of Michigan has received a $4 million federal grant to establish a predoctoral research training program in education sciences.The grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences unites U-M's School of...
The New England Journal of Medicine published John Ayanian’s report on the first 100 days of the Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The plan is a good blueprint for other Republican-governed states...
Brian Jacob has been awarded a $98,487 grant from the Spencer Foundation to study the effectiveness of No Child Left Behind waiver-related reform programs on schools across the country. The study is titled School Reforms and Educational Inequality?...
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...
Two alums reflect on school accountability
President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a new waiver system in September, the latest attempt to alleviate the burden felt by the 20 percent of schools labeled...
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...
A federal grant will fund a new postdoctoral training program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and School of Education, providing fellows with rigorous training in the education research sciences.The program will train a total of five...
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...
The Obama Administration implements Susan Dynarski's research on financial aid
Stretched family incomes, fewer private sources of credit, and rising tuition costs–while still a key predictor of lifetime earnings, a college education has become...
CLOSUP Lecture Series,
Policy Talks @ the Ford School
Free and open to the public. Join the conversation: #fordschoolspellings Lecture by the Honorable Margaret Spellings, Former U.S. Secretary of Education (2005-2009) Abstract: The seminal education law known as No Child Left Behind put critical pressure on our schools to dramatically improve education in America. Through accountability, testing, and consequences for failure, a more targeted focus on our neediest students has translated into measurable success for them.
