NEPC Topic Experts on School Choice

Joshua Weishart is a professor of law at Suffolk University Law School. His research and advocacy center on education rights under federal and state law, especially state constitutions. Within that discipline, his scholarship has focused on issues of school funding, democratic education, integration, and teacher rights. Weishart’s law journal publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Florida Law Review, and U.C. Davis Law Review. Other works include chapters in edited collections such as the Oxford Handbook on U.S. Education Law.

Email Joshua Weishart at joshua.weishart@suffolk.edu

Amy Stuart Wells, a leader and established scholar in the field of education, is the Chief Research Officer of the Bank Street School of Education and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also the founder and executive director of TC’s nationally recognized professional development program Reimagining Education: Teaching, Learning, and Leading for a Racially Just Society and leads several research projects, including The Public Good: A Public School Support Organization, which is dedicated to supporting and sustaining racially diverse public schools. Throughout her career, Wells has made extensive scholarly contributions, not only through the publication of her own books and articles but also by serving as the president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) from 2018-19, among other endeavors. She has worked on issues related to school reform policies and the ways that diversity and segregation impact the health of a school. Her current work is focused on supporting teachers, schools, and school systems in integrating anti-racist policies and practices into their approach to education. 

Email Amy Stuart Wells at: awells@bankstreet.edu

Professor Kevin Welner teaches educational policy and law at the CU Boulder School of Education. He’s also the director of the National Education Policy Center, which works to build bridges between the research world and the broader public. Kevin has authored or edited a dozen books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, including a casebook for law school students about education law, and a book called Closing the Opportunity Gap, which is the foundation for his recent work about the importance of improving children’s opportunities to learn inside and outside of school, including the Price of Opportunity Project. Welner has been recognized by the American Educational Research Association as a Fellow and been given the AERA's Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award (in 2017), Early Career Award (in 2006), Palmer O. Johnson Award (best article in 2004). The Horace Mann League gave Welner its Outstanding Public Educator Award in 2018. He received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from UCSB and his J.D. and Ph.D. from UCLA.

Email Kevin G. Welner at: kevin.welner@colorado.edu

Terri S. Wilson is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on the philosophical foundations of education policy, including issues raised by school choice, marketization and parent engagement. Her current research explores how to balance the interests of families in choosing distinctive schools—especially ones that affirm ethnic, linguistic or cultural identities—against arguments for a common, integrated school system. She received her PhD in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and was a 2012-2014 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow.

Email Terri S. Wilson at: Terri.Wilson@colorado.edu