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EdPolicyForward engages in the study and analysis of a wide range of important educational topics including:

College access and affordability
Dual enrollment and school-to-college transitions
Early childhood education
Education evaluation and assessment
Educator labor markets
Educator preparation
Higher education accountability
International education
K-12 accountability
Online learning
School accountability
School finance reform
School segregation
STEM education
Teacher effectiveness
Teacher leadership
Teacher mobility

EdPolicyForward Research Workshop

Academic Year 2025-26

Date	Time	Location	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
September 25, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Sarah Lenhoff (Wayne State University) & Jeremy Singer (University of Michigan–Flint)	Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism
October 16, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Meredith Billings (University of Texas, Arlington)	A Tale of Two States: How are Higher Education Budget Requests Justified to State Legislatures?
November 13, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Thompson Hall 2007 (Fairfax campus)		Laura Rogers (University of Virginia)	The Long Goodbye? Teacher and Principal Organizational Conditions, Wellbeing, and Turnover
February 26, 2026	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Ilana Umansky (University of Oregon)
March 26, 2026	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Meghan McCormick (Overdeck Family Foundation)
April 23, 2026	11 am - 12:30 pm	Thompson Hall 2007 (Fairfax campus)		Erik Hines (George Mason University)
May 2026		Van Metre Hall (Mason Square campus)		GMU PhD students

Date	Time	Location	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
September 19, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Morgan Polikoff (University of Southern California)	What’s Driving Opposition to Race- and LGBTQ-Related Content in Schools? Evidence from Two National Surveys
October 17, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Erica Harbatkin (Florida State University)	Should I Stay or Should I Go (Later)? Teacher intentions and turnover in low-performing schools and districts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic
November 14, 2024	1 pm - 2:30 pm	Thompson Hall 2007 (Fairfax campus)	Register	Najeeb Shafiq (University of Pittsburgh)	Perceived returns and regrets among college graduates
February 13, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Julie Cohen (University of Virginia)	Experimental Evidence about Modularizing Content in Teacher Education
March 6, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Susan Dynarski (Harvard University)	The Power of Certainty Experimental Evidence on the Effective Design of Free Tuition Policies
April 10, 2025	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Jennifer Jennings (Princeton University)	How Information Works: Evidence from a Mixed-Methods School Information Experiment in New York City
May 8, 2025	5 pm - 6:30 pm	Virtual	Register	Beth Davis & Natalie Truong, Alyssa Barone	Critical Analysis of the Invisibility of Immigrant-Origin Students in Public Data Systems, & An Exploratory Analysis Using Machine Learning to Modify Teacher Value-added Models

Fall 2023

Date	Time	Location	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
September 21, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Dan Goldhaber (University of Washington)	How Well Do Professional Reference Ratings Predict Teacher Performance?
October 26, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Morgaen Donaldson (University of Connecticut)	Following the Money: Investigating Variations in the Design and Implementation of School District ARP-ESSER Plans
November 2, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Jonathan Collins (Brown University)	Does Meeting Style Matter? The Effect of Public Deliberation on School Board Meeting Participation
December 7, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Jason Grissom (Vanderbilt University)	A Bad Commute: Travel Time to Work Predicts Teacher Turnover and Other Workplace Outcomes

Spring 2024

Date	Time	Location	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
January 25, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Anna Egalite (North Carolina State University)	The Role of Teacher-Student Ethnoracial Matching in Student Identification for Special Education Services
February 22, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Heather L. Schwartz (RAND Corporation)	Surveying Educators About Hot Topics in Education, and the Results That Surprised Us
March 21, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Christopher Cleveland (Boston University)	A Text-as-Data Approach to Understanding Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) at Scale
April 18, 2024	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual Only	Register	Rebecca Jacobsen (Michigan State University)	When Losing is Winning: The Lasting Impact of the Politics of Disruption
May 16, 2024	3:30 pm - 5 pm	Van Metre Hall 716	Register	Natalie Troung and Sara Townsend (GMU Students)	"Data disaggregation and the inadequacies of pan-ethnic inferences: An exploration of Southeast Asian American experiences in K-12 education" AND "How Local Education Policymakers Define the Teacher Turnover Problem: A Case Study"

Fall 2022

Date	Time	Location (in person)	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
September 22, 2022	2 pm - 3:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 468	Register (Zoom)	Doug Harris (Tulane University)	The Effects of COVID on Educational Attainment
October 20, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 468	Register (Zoom)	Cara Jackson (Abt Associates)	Democratizing the Development of Evidence
November 10, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 468	Register (Zoom)	Samantha Viano (George Mason University)	The oversimplification of the Black-White high school graduation gap: Examining policy guidance and student outcomes through critical structural capital analysis
December 8, 2022	2 pm - 3:30 pm	Virtual only	Register (Zoom)	Travis Bristol (University of California, Berkeley)	Developing and Retaining Teachers of Color

Spring 2023

Date	Time	Location (in person)	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
January 19, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 468	Register (Zoom)	Luis Rodriguez (NYU)	Well, What About Teachers? Exploring Relationships Between Parent Involvement and Trust With Teacher Job Satisfaction and Retention
February 23, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual only	Register (Zoom)	David Blazar (University of Maryland)	Differential Responses to Teacher Evaluation Incentives
March 16, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 467	Register (Zoom)	Melissa Lyon (SUNY Albany)	The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century
April 20, 2023	11 am - 12:30 pm	Virtual only	Register (Zoom)	Julia Burdick-Will (Johns Hopkins University)	Anywhere But Here: Neighborhood Violence and Local School Preferences in Baltimore City
May 11, 2023	3:30 pm - 5 pm	Van Metre Hall 716	Register (Zoom)	PhD Student Colloquium: Kevin Monnin (George Mason University) and Beth Davis (George Mason University)	TBD

Fall 2021

Date	Time	Location (in person)	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
September 9, 2021	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322		Susanna Loeb (Brown University)	Home-School Bridges: The Effects of Teacher-Family Visitations on Student Engagement and Learning
October 14, 2021	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322	Register (Zoom)	Brian Gill (Mathematica)	Measuring educational performance for improvement: A framework for diagnostic use of data
November 18, 2021	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322	Register (Zoom)	Seth Hunter (George Mason University) and Matthew Steinberg (George Mason University)	Do You Observe What I Observe? Exploring the Discordance in Teacher and Evaluator Ratings of Teacher Performance
December 9, 2021	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322	Register (Zoom)	Jing Liu (University of Maryland)	From Referrals to Suspensions: New Evidence on Racial Disparities in Exclusionary Discipline

Spring 2022

Date	Time	Location (in person)	Virtual Access	Presenter	Topic
January 27, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322	Register (Zoom)	Constance Lindsay (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)	A Scalable Empathic-Mindset Intervention Reduces Group Disparities in School Suspensions
February 24, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 322	Register (Zoom)	David Houston (George Mason University)	COVID-19 School Closures and Public Support for Educators
March 24, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Online	Register (Zoom)	Matt Chingos (Urban Institute)	Democratizing Education Data and Policy Analysis
April 21, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Online	Register (Zoom)	Beth Schueler (University of Virginia)	Does Policy Debate Improve Academic Achievement? Evidence from Boston
May 12, 2022	11 am - 12:30 pm	Van Metre Hall 468	Register (Zoom)	Katherine Bowser (George Mason University) and Elizabeth Davis (George Mason University)	TBD