About the National Education Policy Center

Mission

The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence.

Our Staff

Our senior academic staff members include nationally recognized education researchers, writers, and practitioners whose experience ensures the quality, timeliness, and value of the work NEPC does. Please feel free to contact staff members about topics of interest to you.  Please feel free to reach out to any of our staff for more information.

	Kevin Welner, NEPC Director kevin.welner@colorado.edu NEPC director Kevin G. Welner is a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education. He has authored or edited seven books and more than 70 articles and book chapters concerning education policy and law. These publications include The Obama Education Blueprint: Researchers examine the evidence (2010, co-edited with William Mathis); Think tank research quality: Lessons for policymakers, the media, and the public (2010, with Pat Hinchey, Alex Molnar and Don Weitzman); NeoVouchers: The emergence of tuition tax credits for private schooling (2008); Legal rights, local wrongs: When community control collides with educational equity (2001); and Education policy and law: Current issues (with Wendy Chi, 2008). He has received the AERA’s Early Career Award and its Palmer O. Johnson Award, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Residency, and the NAEd/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship. He received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from UCSB and his J.D. and Ph.D. from UCLA.
	Alex Molnar, NEPC Publishing Director nepc.molnar@gmail.com Alex Molnar is the Director of Publications for the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) and a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. His work has examined curriculum and instruction topics, market-based education reforms, and policy formation. He directed the Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation (CERAI) at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and for six years (1995-2001) was the principal investigator for the research evaluation of Wisconsin’s SAGE class size reduction program. From 2001-2011 he directed the Education Policy Studies Research Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University.  Molnar is an internationally recognized expert on school commercialism; his annual reports on commercializing trends in schools have become standard reference works for experts in the field. His most recent books are Commercialism in education: From democratic ideal to market commodity (2005) and Think tank research quality: Lessons for policymakers, the media, and the public (with Kevin Welner, Pat Hinchey and Don Weitzman) (2010). Molnar has a B.A. in history, political science, and education; Masters degrees in history and in social welfare; a Specialist's Certificate in educational administration; and a Ph.D. in urban education.
	Bill Mathis, NEPC Managing Director william.mathis@colorado.edu William J. Mathis, Ph.D., is the Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Center conducts independent, nonpartisan and peer-reviewed research on the most critical and current educational policy issues. Previously, Bill served as superintendent of schools in Brandon, Vermont where he was Vermont Superintendent of the Year and was one of four finalists for National Superintendent of the Year. In earlier positions, he was Deputy Assistant Commissioner in New Jersey where he headed assessment, research and evaluation activities. He has been invited to consult with the federal government and on state-level issues in more than thirty states. Working with eight institutions of higher education over his career, his primary areas of expertise are school funding, assessment, accountability, and reform effectiveness. From popular magazines to technical reports to peer-reviewed research, Bill has authored over 200 articles.
	Gene Glass, Senior Researcher gene.glass@colorado.edu Gene V Glass is a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and Regents' Professor Emeritus from Arizona State University. Trained originally in statistics, his interests broadened to include psychotherapy research, evaluation methodology, and policy analysis. He was twice (1968, 1970) honored with the Palmer O. Johnson award of the American Educational Research Association; in 1984, he received the Paul Lazarsfeld Award of the American Evaluation Association. He is a recipient of the Cattell Award of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. His work on meta-analysis of psychotherapy outcomes (with M.L. Smith) was named as one of the Forty Studies that Changed Psychology in the book of the same name by Roger R. Hock (1999). His Ph.D. was awarded by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in educational psychology with a minor in statistics.
	Michele Moses, Researcher, IDEAL michele.moses@colorado.edu Michele S. Moses is Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She specializes in philosophy and education policy studies, with particular expertise in policy issues related to race, class, and gender, such as affirmative action and other equal opportunity policies. Her work has appeared in journals such as American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Harvard Educational Review, and Journal of Social Philosophy, as well as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. In addition, Dr. Moses is the author of Embracing Race: Why We Need Race-Conscious Education Policy (Teachers College Press, 2002). Her current research is aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the roots of the political debates over race-conscious policies that profoundly affect meaningful opportunities for higher education. She is examining the nature of persistent moral disagreement over affirmative action and the effects of eliminating affirmative action through the state ballot initiative process. Dr. Moses has been a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow and a Fulbright New Century Scholar, and recently was awarded the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association.
	Faith Boninger, Research Associate faith.boninger@colorado.edu Faith Boninger researches and writes about commercial activities in schools. She brings to this work a background in social psychology (Ph.D., Ohio State University), particularly an interest in persuasion and communication processes. For the past several years she has co-authored CERU’s Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends. Additional publications include A National Survey of the Types and Extent of the Marketing of Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value in Schools, with Alex Molnar, David Garcia, and Bruce Merrill (2006) and Policy and Statutory Responses to Advertising and Marketing in Schools, with Alex Molnar and Bill Koski (2010).
	Liliana Vázquez, Doctoral Student Researcher liliana.vazquez@colorado.edu Liliana Vázquez is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education. She was an elementary school teacher in Illinois prior to moving to Colorado. Liliana holds a B.S. in Political Science and an M.S. in Education.
	Ryan Pfleger, Doctoral Student Researcher ryan.pfleger@colorado.edu Ryan Pfleger is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. He is broadly interested in using social scientific and philosophical lenses to shed light on issues of inequity connected to schooling. Currently, he focuses on the economic contexts, both material and ideological, that influence education policy and practice. Before coming to Colorado, Ryan worked in the film and video industry, did masters work in Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at American University.
	Michael D. Harris, Doctoral Student Researcher michael.d.harris@colorado.edu Mike Harris is a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. He is a former high school Social Studies teacher and coach. He received his B.A. at the University of Oklahoma and his M.Ed in Education Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma. He is currently working as a University Supervisor, focusing on the certification of pre-service teachers.
	Kathryn Wiley, Doctoral Student Researcher kathryn.wiley@colorado.edu Katy Wiley is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education. She studies racial equity in relation to K-12 student assignment and curriculum policies. She received her MA at CU and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
	Bethy Leonardi, Doctoral Student Researcher bethy.leonardi@colorado.edu Bethy Leonardi is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education. She is interested in issues of equity and how policy often serves to perpetuate rather than ameliorate inequity within the system. Her research focuses on dismantling heteronormativity in schools, as well as interrogating traditional conceptions of "at-risk" youth – calling for more attention to systemic inequalities. She received her MA in the same discipline at CU. Leonardi, a native of New Orleans, also has a bachelor’s degree in English Education with a minor in Math Education. She has taught both high school and middle school English, math and history for the past 14 years in a variety of settings, including traditional schools, Waldorf, John Dewey-based progressive, gifted, as well as an alternative high school that supports students who have had difficulty succeeding in more traditional environments.