Tools, publications, and notes from the practice.
Everything published here serves the same purpose: making the components behind a policy problem legible, so leaders can act on them.
Peer-reviewed models and public tools.
- Paper
Examining the Relationship Between School Resource Officers (SROs) and Incident Referrals to Outside Law Enforcement
Journal of School Violence · 2026Nationally representative analysis (N = 2,762) showing SRO presence is associated with increased law enforcement referrals — particularly in secondary schools, with implications for educational equity and youth criminalization.
Open link → - Paper
Segregate, Discriminate, Signal
Educational Policy · 2023Peer-reviewed model for understanding the policy drivers of educational inequality. The SDS Triangle used across the practice starts here.
Open link → - Tool
Diversifying the Teacher Workforce Data Tool
AIR · GTL CenterExcel-based diagnostic used by dozens of states and districts to identify diversity gaps across the educator career continuum.
Open link → - Framework
The READI Framework
AIR · GTL CenterFlipping the readiness paradigm: designing programs that can succeed in the highest-need schools, rather than requiring schools to be ready for programs.
- Paper
Simulation Evidence on the Prospective Teacher Pipeline
Journal of Education Human ResourcesWith Dan Goldhaber. Simulation evidence on how progression through the teacher pipeline affects workforce diversity.
- Paper
Identifying Drivers of Educational Inequality in States and Districts
Working paperApplied use of the SDS Triangle to identify systemic drivers of inequality across state and district contexts.
Short essays on policy, equity, and the Components Approach.
Written from active engagements — never before a project needs the thinking, never long after.
- 2025 · Essay
A state-funded model for education research and technical assistance
After the federal wave of layoffs in education research, a national, opt-in, state-funded research and TA center could put displaced expertise back to work — and improve on the model we lost.
Federal policyResearch infrastructureEquity - 2025 · Essay
The problem with averages: a tale of two school systems
Mayor Bowser's DC CAPE announcement celebrated 'improvement across all groups.' The NAEP data — and thirty-two years of it — tells a different story. This is a case study in the statistic that matters: the size of the gap.
EquityData literacyDC schoolsSegregation - 2025 · Essay
AI surveillance and the deprofessionalization of teaching
Michael Petrilli floated a proposal: outfit teachers with AI recording devices and mine the transcripts. It's the latest chapter in a longer story — one where we underpay and deskill the profession, then try to engineer our way out of the results.
Teacher professionAI in educationResearch ethics