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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

Academic Year 2025-26

Date Time Location Virtual Access Presenter Topic
September 25, 2025 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Sarah Lenhoff (Wayne State University) & Jeremy Singer (University of Michigan–Flint) Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism
October 16, 2025 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual 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 Ilana Umansky
(University of Oregon)		 Access to Educational Content among Secondary Students Classified as English Learners: A Multistate Study of Barriers and Opportunities
March 26, 2026 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Register Meghan McCormick
(Overdeck Family Foundation)		 Demystifying Foundation Funding: How to Align Your Ideas with What Funders Value
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

Academic Year 2024-25

Date Time Location Presenter Topic
September 19, 2024 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual 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 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) Najeeb Shafiq
(University of Pittsburgh)		 Perceived returns and regrets among college graduates
February 13, 2025 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Julie Cohen
(University of Virginia)		 Experimental Evidence about Modularizing Content in Teacher Education
March 6, 2025 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual 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 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 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

Academic Year 2023-24

Fall 2023

Date Time Location Presenter Topic
September 21, 2023 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Only Dan Goldhaber
(University of Washington)		 How Well Do Professional Reference Ratings Predict Teacher Performance?
October 26, 2023 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Only 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 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 Jason Grissom
(Vanderbilt University)		 A Bad Commute: Travel Time to Work Predicts Teacher Turnover and Other Workplace Outcomes

Spring 2024

Date Time Location Presenter Topic
January 25, 2024 11 am - 12:30 pm Virtual Only 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 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 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 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 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"

Academic Year 2022-23

Fall 2022

Date Time Location (in person) Presenter Topic
September 22, 2022 2 pm - 3:30 pm Van Metre Hall 468 Doug Harris
(Tulane University)		 The Effects of COVID on Educational Attainment
October 20, 2022 11 am - 12:30 pm Van Metre Hall 468 Cara Jackson
(Abt Associates)		 Democratizing the Development of Evidence
November 10, 2022 11 am - 12:30 pm Van Metre Hall 468 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 Travis Bristol
(University of California, Berkeley)		 Developing and Retaining Teachers of Color

Spring 2023

Date Time Location (in person) Presenter Topic
January 19, 2023 11 am - 12:30 pm Van Metre Hall 468 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 David Blazar
(University of Maryland)		 Differential Responses to Teacher Evaluation Incentives
March 16, 2023 11 am - 12:30 pm Van Metre Hall 467 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 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 PhD Student Colloquium: Kevin Monnin (George Mason University) and Beth Davis (George Mason University) TBD

Academic Year 2021-22

Fall 2021

Date Time Location (in person) 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 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 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 Jing Liu
(University of Maryland)		 From Referrals to Suspensions: New Evidence on Racial Disparities in Exclusionary Discipline

Spring 2022

Date Time Location (in person) Presenter Topic
January 27, 2022 11 am - 12:30 pm Van Metre Hall 322 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 David Houston
(George Mason University)		 COVID-19 School Closures and Public Support for Educators
March 24, 2022 11 am - 12:30 pm Online Matt Chingos
(Urban Institute)		 Democratizing Education Data and Policy Analysis
April 21, 2022 11 am - 12:30 pm Online 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 Katherine Bowser
(George Mason University)
and
Elizabeth Davis
(George Mason University)		 TBD