NEPC Topic Experts on Class Size

Gene V Glass is Regents' Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. He is also currently a Senior Researcher at the National Education Policy Center. 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; and 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 Mary Lee 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 in 1965 by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in educational psychology with a minor in mathematical statistics. His more recent contributions to the analysis of education policy include Fertilizers, Pills and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America (2008), and 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education (2014) with D.C. Berliner & Associates.

Email Gene V Glass at: glass@asu.edu or gvglass@gmail.com

Luis A. Huerta is an associate professor of education and public policy at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research and scholarship focus on issues of decentralization related to school choice reforms, as well as the impact of school finance inequities on implementing school reform. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Email Luis A. Huerta at: lah2013@tc.columbia.edu

Dr. David Knight is Associate Professor and co-Director of the Education Policy Analytics Lab at the University of Washington. He also serves as Principal Investigator (PI) of a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, exploring teacher turnover during the COVID-19 era using statewide longitudinal data systems from Texas and Washington. He serves as co-PI of a grant from W. T. Grant Foundation exploring the impacts of school finance reforms and as co-PI of a Lyle Spencer Foundation grant examining the impacts and cost of dual credit education. Dr. Knight’s research focuses on the economics of education and school finance. He studies educational systems through the lens of economic theory and methodologies. His work emphasizes distributive justice, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic finance equity, and policies aimed at reducing inequality and addressing longstanding racial and income-based disparities in educational opportunity. He holds a Ph.D. in educational policy and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Southern California. Dr. Knight previously served as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso College of Education and as Director of the Center for Education Research and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Email David Knight at: dsknight@uw.edu

Jaekyung Lee, PhD, is a professor and former dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. A fellow of the prestigious American Educational Research Association (AERA), Lee is an internationally recognized leader in educational policy, accountability and equity, and international and comparative education. He has a PhD in education from the University of Chicago. Lee is currently a Richard P. Nathan Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute of Government. He was also a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and a fellow of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the recipient of 2007 AERA Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award and 2015 Western New York Educational Service Council Robert W. Heller Award. Lee is the author of "The Anatomy of Achievement Gaps: Why and How American Education is Losing (But Can Still Win) the War on Underachievement" (Oxford University Press).

Email Jaekyung Lee at: jl224@buffalo.edu

H. Richard Milner IV (also known as Rich) is Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. His research, teaching, and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education. Professor Milner’s research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools. Professor Milner is President of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published seven books. His most recent are: Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2010 and 2020, Second Edition), Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools and classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and These kids are out of control: Why we must reimagine classroom management for equity (Corwin Press, 2018).   

Email Rich Milner at: rich.milner@vanderbilt.edu

NEPC Director Alex Molnar founded NEPC with Kevin Welner in 2010. He is a Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and also co-directs the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU). He has published numerous articles on social and educational policy and practice. For the past three decades, he has studied and written about commercial activities in schools. Molnar has also researched the impact of reduced class size on student achievement and market-based school reforms such as private school vouchers, charter schools, virtual schools, and for-profit schools. Molnar has a B.A. in history, political science, and education; two masters degrees, one in history and one in social welfare; a Specialist's Certificate in educational administration; and a Ph.D. in urban education. His most recent book, Sold Out: How Marketing in School Threatens Children's Well-Being and Undermines their Education, with Faith Boninger, was released in 2015. 

Email Alex Molnar at: nepc.molnar@protonmail.com

Ed Wiley is a senior executive with over 20 years of building, leading, and advising world-class machine learning, AI, and data science teams at companies at stages from startup to Fortune 50. His research interests center around Big Data and advanced statistical analytics, systems of school accountability, teacher quality and compensation, and school choice - initiatives central to the current atmosphere of standards-based testing.

Email Ed Wiley at: ewiley@stanfordalumni.org