USC EdPolicy Hub
The USC EdPolicy Hub collaborates with schools, education systems, and community colleges throughout Southern California to conduct rigorous, actionable, boundary-spanning research. Research results—shared with language and formats geared for practitioners and policymakers—inform decisions for educators, policymakers, and families, ultimately improving student outcomes.
Join our mailing listFor more information, read the USC EdPolicy Hub Summary.
News and Commentary
Meeting the moment: Leadership for equity
2025 Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice Conference addressed today’s educational challenges and reimagined leadership strategies.
Innovative partnership announced to enhance equity in K–12 math education
New project is made possible through a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant.
̳ EdPolicy Hub awarded grant to create “Education-to-Workforce” network
With support from a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, the ̳ EdPolicy Hub will establish a network of Local Education Agencies throughout Southern California to identify policies that strengthen educational outcomes and improve workforce readiness.
USC EdPolicy Hub launches with conference bringing together practitioners and researchers
At the Developing Responsive Research Conference, education administrators codeveloped research projects with experts to solve pressing problems at their agencies.
Why USC?
The Hub is based at the ̳ School of Education as part of Dean Pedro Noguera’s Educational Equity Initiative. ̳ has an unparalleled network of graduates working as district leaders across Southern California. From our ̳ base, we will bring in expertise from across the university including the USC Price School of Public Policy, the Center for Applied Research in Education, and other research centers and researchers both within and beyond ̳, ensuring that we can always match the appropriate expertise and methods to the problems at hand.
̳ has an unparalleled network of graduates working as district leaders in Southern California and across the state with whom we are collaborating to drive this work. This includes more than 80 superintendents who are active in the Dean’s Superintendent Advisory Group.
Who We Are
Leadership and affiliates.
Patricia Burch
Patricia Burch, Hub Faculty co-Director, is a Professor of Education at ̳ with over twenty-five years of experience studying educational reforms. She works in partnership with local, state and Federal policy makers to understand contemporary controversies and practical dilemmas in advancing educational equity. She is the author of numerous articles on these topics including (with Carolyn Heinrich) the 2016 Mixed Methods for Policy Research and Program Evaluation.
Jon Fullerton
Jon Fullerton, Hub Executive Director, is a Research Professor at ̳. He has over twenty years’ experience in using data to guide system improvement and the effective use of financial resources in the education sector. Before coming to USC, Fullerton was the Executive Director of the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University. While at CEPR, he founded the Strategic Data Project (SDP) which places and trains analytic data fellows across the PK12 and postsecondary sectors. Fullerton has also served as the Board of Education’s Director of Budget and Financial Policy for the Los Angeles Unified School District and was Vice-President of Strategy, Evaluation, Research, and Policy at the Los Angeles Education Partnership.
Soumya Mishra
Soumya Mishra, is a postdoctoral research associate with the IES-funded Leveraging Technology and Student Engagement (LTES) project. Soumya’s research interests include student access and success in American community colleges as well as higher education policy in South Asian countries. Her current work involves mixed methods research on institutional responses to instructional challenges created by Covid-19, differences in student outcomes between various instructional modalities, and cost analysis of instruction across modalities. Soumya holds a bachelors degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. She earned a masters and PhD in Education Policy from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Morgan Polikoff
Morgan Polikoff, Hub Faculty co-Director, is a Professor of Education at ̳. He studies curriculum, standards, accountability, and assessment policy and is the author of 2021’s . He also investigates public opinion on education policy and families’ experiences in schools using state- and nationally-representative surveys, including USC’s .
Anna Rosefsky Saavedra
Dr. Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, a Research Scientist and Co-Director, is an applied education researcher with specialization in the areas of teaching and learning and civics education. She is also the Director of Research for the USC EdPolicy Hub based at the ̳ School of Education. Dr. Saavedra co-leads the education module of the , a nationally representative panel study of parents’ perceptions and reports on their children’s educational experiences. Between 2015-21, Dr. Saavedra was Principal Investigator (PI) of a five-district, mixed-methods, randomized controlled trial (RCT) efficacy study of the implementation and impact of a project-based learning approach to teaching AP U.S. Government and AP Environmental Science. Based on study results, the College Board is changing Advance Placement courses and corresponding exams to make them more project-based. Dr. Saavedra is currently the PI of a five-year RCT efficacy study of a program designed to help teachers facilitate classroom discussions of contested topics, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences (IES). She is also co-PI of another IES-funded RCT, and leads several other projects related to applied learning. Prior to her research career, Dr. Saavedra managed educational programs and partnerships for an educational travel company and taught high school world history. She earned her education master’s and doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Marco Torres
Marco Torres, is a project researcher with the USC EdPolicy Hub. Marco has a masters degree from the Leadership and Policy Studies program at Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and has worked alongside organizations such as The Center for an Urban Future, Make the Road New York, Ronald McDonald House - NYC, and the Rockefeller School of Government. Marco served as a lead researcher and writer on the 2021 ETS /College Promise report on first-generation student success, contributed to a book chapter in the recently published Working for a Future: Equity and Access in Work-based Learning for Young People, and, has co-written an academic paper on Latinx leadership and higher education, which was published in the 2021 Fall Issue of the Journal of Applied Research in Community Colleges (JARCC).
Marshall Garland
Research Scientist and Co-Director of the USC Center for Applied Research in Education (CARE)
Huriya Jabbar,
̳ Associate Professor of Education.
Royel Johnson
̳ Associate Professor of Education
Pedro A. Noguera
Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the ̳ School of Education
Amie Rapaport
Research Scientist and Co-Director of the USC Center for Applied Research in Education (CARE)
Dan Silver
Research Scientist at the USC Center for Applied Research in Education
Jun Byon
̳ School of Education
Alvin Makori
̳ School of Education
Jeimee Estrada Miller
USC Price School of Public Policy
Jake Scollan Rowley
̳ School of Education
Shelby Smith
̳ School of Education
Partners
Our funding and research partners
For more information, read these details about.
Reports
Outcomes and findings from our work
Equity, Impact, Transparency: Rethinking Ed Vendor Contracts After ESSER
Using purchasing data from GovSpend, Patricia Burch arguesnow that the health crisis has passed and COVID funds are largely spent, districts must reassess how the contracts they sign support schools.
Key lessons from research about project-based teaching and learning
High-quality materials, professional learning supports, and a schoolwide PBL culture are markers of successful PBL programs. See Anna Saavedra and Amie Rapaport’s article summarizing lessons learned through studying seven programs.
News
Many families don't know how much the pandemic harmed their child's learning; that's a problem
COVID recovery is not proceeding at the needed pace in California. Drawing from Understanding America Study education data, Morgan Polikoff and Anna Saavedra provide some thoughts on what to do in this EdSource article
News
Beyond test scores: Broader academic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on American students
Reviewing three years of literature, this report by Morgan Polikoff, Isabel Clay, and Daniel Silver synthesizes the non-test academic impacts of COVID on children. The report finds substantial harm and widening gaps in areas like attendance, course completion, and community college enrollment.
Pressroom
The EdPolicy Hub and the public conversation