NEPC Topic Experts on School Administration and School Administrator Issues

Carol Corbett Burris became Executive Director of the Network for Public Education Foundation in August 2015, after serving as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in NY since 2000.  Prior to becoming a principal, she was a teacher at both the middle and high school level.  She received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her dissertation, which studied her district’s detracking reform in math, received the 2003 National Association of Secondary Schools’ Principals Middle Level Dissertation of the Year Award.  In 2010, she was named Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, she was named SAANYS New York State High School Principal of the Year.  Dr. Burris co-authored Detracking for Excellence and Equity (2008) and Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness (2012), and authored On the Same Track: How Schools Can Join the 21st Century Struggle against Re-segregation (2014). Her articles have appeared in Educational Leadership, Kappan, American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Theory into Practice, School Administrator, American School Board Journal and Education Week. She regularly expresses her concerns about the misuse and unintended consequences of high-stakes testing in the Washington Post, The Answer Sheet blog.

E-mail Carol Burris at: burriscarol@gmail.com

Casey Cobb is Professor and Department Head of Educational Leadership and Director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Connecticut. His current research interests include policies on accountability, school choice, and desegregation, where he examines the implications for equity among historically marginalized populations. He teaches courses in policy studies, research methods, and program evaluation.

Email Casey Cobb at casey.cobb@uconn.edu

Arnold Danzig runs the doctoral program in educational leadership and is a professor at San Jose State University. He was previously professor of leadership and policy studies and the associate director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University, and served as the director of the Division of Advanced Studies in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education at ASU.  He has authored or co-authored numerous articles, books, and reports on administrative leadership and education policy.  He is an editor of the Review of Research in Education sponsored by the American Educational Research Association.

Email Arnold Danzig at Arnold.danzig@sjsu.edu

Amy Farley is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies program within the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses broadly on equity in P-20 education systems and how consequential K-12 and postsecondary policies impact educational opportunity. She pays particular attention to school and university reform; high-stakes policies, including those regarding data use, measurement, and assessment; and the disparate impact of policies on minoritized student and teacher populations. Before becoming a faculty member, Amy worked as a K-12 educator and a Strategic Data Fellow through Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research, where she worked closely with state and local agencies to conduct research and provide technical assistance regarding the implementation of education policies and reforms related to standards, educator evaluation, and student assessment.

Email Amy Farley at: farleyay@ucmail.uc.edu

Ed Fuller is an Associate Professor in the Education Leadership Department at Penn State University. He is also the Director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis as well as the Associate Director for Policy of the University Council for Educational Administration.

Email Ed Fuller at: ejf20@psu.edu

Catherine A. Lugg is Professor Emerita of education in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. Professor Lugg’s research interests include educational history and policy, the influences of media on policymaking, and social history.

Email Catherine A. Lugg at: catherinealugg@gmail.com

Following a decade as the Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, William J. Mathis serves as a Senior Policy Advisor to the center. He was a co-recipient of the national Friend of Public Education award. As the superintendent of schools in Brandon, Vermont, he was a National Superintendent of the Year finalist and a Vermont Superintendent of the Year. A plaintiff and finance expert in the successful school funding lawsuit, the state’s educational system was transformed. He was appointed to the Vermont State Board of Education and served as vice-chair. In earlier work he was Deputy Assistant Commissioner in New Jersey where he directed the state’s assessment system and evaluated the Constitutionality of the school system. Consultant work across the nation followed. He has published or presented research on finance, assessment, accountability, standards, cost-effectiveness, education reform, history, and Constitutional issues. He also serves on various editorial boards and frequently publishes commentaries on educational policy issues. He has co-edited several books and has been featured in several periodicals. He is a board member of the Horace Mann League and sits on his local school board.

Email William J. Mathis at: williamjmathis@gmail.com

Margaret Terry Orr is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership, Administration and Policy Division of Fordham University. Previously, she was on the faculty of Bank Street College of Education, where she directed the Future School Leaders Academy, a two-year, dual certification leadership preparation program in partnership with 30+ school districts. In her prior work, she was an associate professor of Educational Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University and a senior research associate at the Academy for Educational Development (now FHI 360).

Dr. Orr has conducted a great number of regional and national studies over the last 35 years on leadership preparation approaches and school and district reform initiatives, and has published numerous books and articles. Her books address effective approaches to leadership preparation and development. Her articles on preparation program effects demonstrated the influence of preparation on leadership practices and school improvement work.

Email Margaret Terry Orr at: morr4@fordham.edu

Dr. Regina Umpstead Pratel is Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Evaluation, and Organizational Development in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville.  Her expertise is in educational law and policy studies. She joined the Price of Opportunity Project in 2022, focusing primarily on the work in Michigan. Dr. Umpstead Pratel earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. from Michigan State University. 

Email Regina Umpstead at: regina.umpstead@louisville.edu

Carrie Sampson, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University. Her scholarship focuses on how educational leadership and policymaking at the K-12 level influences equity and social justice for minoritized youth and their families. Dr. Sampson has conducted research on school desegregation policies. Her most recent line of research is centered at the school district level with an emphasis on governance, particularly the role of school boards, community advocacy, decentralization, and school choice policies. Her methodological expertise is in case study and qualitative methods. Dr. Sampson’s research on school boards was recently funded by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Email Carrie Sampson at: csampso4@asu.edu

Tina Trujillo is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA and her M.A. in Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a former urban public school teacher, school reform consultant, and educational evaluator. Dr. Trujillo uses tools from political science and critical policy studies to study the political dimensions of urban district reform, the instructional and democratic consequences of high-stakes testing and accountability policies for students of color and English Learners, and trends in urban educational leadership. Her work is published in a range of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, Journal of Educational Administration, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. She is the co-editor of Learning from the Federal Market-Based Reforms: Lessons for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (2016, Information Age Publishing, with William Mathis).

Email Tina Trujillo at: trujillo@berkeley.edu