The Education Policy Collaborative annual meeting in Chicago, with Michael Gottfried front, far right
Michael Gottfried of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School has co-founded the Education Policy Collaborative (EPC), a vehicle to bring together energetic education policy faculty from schools of education across the U.S. in order to create an open, academic space. The founding committee of EPC includes co-founder Shaun Dougherty, University of Connecticut, and Ethan Hutt, University of Maryland, Daniel Klasik, George Washington University, Kevin Gee, UC Davis, and Anna Egalite, North Carolina State University.
The group’s initial annual meeting was held this August in Chicago. The event provided numerous opportunities to: (1) ensure the participating scholars are all aware of each others’ research agendas and areas of overlap; (2) provide academic feedback on work that is truly in progress (focusing on conversations about next steps); (3) leave ample time for group discussion and working-group opportunities to develop co-author teams and proposal groups; and (4) form social peer networks.
“The conference was a huge success,” Gottfried says. “We have decided to have ‘traveling’ panels in the upcoming year, each one focused on a theme that emerged from this meeting. For example, a panel at UC Davis will explore the theme of high school to college transition.”
The initial meeting was funded in part by The Fordham Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. The next formal meeting will take place in August 2017.
Michael Gottfried is an associate professor in the Department of Education at the Gevirtz School at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Gottfried’s research focuses on the economics of education and education policy. Using the analytic tools from these disciplines, he has examined issues pertaining to attendance, educational settings, disabilities research, and STEM. Dr. Gottfried has published numerous articles in these areas and won multiple scholarly awards for his research, including the AERA’s Outstanding Publication in Methodology Award (2010 and 2012) and the Highest Reviewed Paper Award (2013). He has co-edited When School Policies Backfire: How Well-Intended Measures Can Harm Our Most Vulnerable Students and Inequality, Power and School Success: Case Studies on Racial Disparity and Opportunity in Education, both with Gilberto Conchas.