Education Policy Foundations

Catalog description

This course introduces students to a variety of educational policy strategies aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning in P-12 settings. The goals of the course are to (1) to familiarize students with the arguments and evidence relating to important education policies and/or interventions and (2) provide students with an analytic framework to assess education policy more generally. Specific policy areas in K-12 education include school choice, school accountability, teacher effectiveness and labor markets, school finance reform, and the role of technology in schools. Throughout the course, we will focus on the differential impact of policies by student demographic characteristics (e.g., race, gender, socioeconomic status) and community context.