NEPC Experts in Illinois

Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. His interests include the political economy and cultural politics of public school privatization. His work also explains how the privatization movement in education is part of the broader movement to undermine public democratic power and expand global corporate power.

He is the author and editor of numerous books on educational policy and politics including Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, The Edison Schools, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, The Failure of Corporate School Reform, The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, and Toward a New Common School Movement.  His most recent book (2016) is Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education.

Email Kenneth Saltman at: ksaltman@uic.edu 

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, as a visiting professor, is Senior Advisor to the President for Academic Excellence and Associate Provost at the University of Florida. She is a professor in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, Director of the Institute for Policy Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is also a research consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She studies policies aimed at improving the lives of children in poverty, including education, health, and income support policies. Her recent work has focused on tracing the impact of major public policies such as the Food Stamp Program and early childhood education on children’s long-term outcomes. 

Email Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach at: dws@northwestern.edu

William Trent is Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research on educational inequality has focused on school desegregation effects at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, benefits and consequences, social organization of school, status attainment research, co- and extracurricular activities, and comparative education. Dr. Trent is a member of the Higher Learning Commission and the Higher Education Policy Advisory Board, and serves on the research advisory committee of the Gates Millennium Scholars Program through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist and served as co-chair of the Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity. His publications include works on school desegregation, access, success and desegregation in higher education, teacher education and equity issues in assessment.

Email William Trent at: w-trent@ad.uiuc.edu