LEADERSHIP AND STAFF

Dara Zeehandelaar Shaw is the executive director of the DC Education Research Collaborative, a new research-practice partnership housed at the Urban Institute. The Collaborative is authorized by the District of Columbia government to provide actionable, independent research to support improvement in the District’s public schools.

Previously, she was the founder and executive director of the Office of Research and Strategic Data Use at the Maryland State Department of Education, where she led the department’s research and evaluation work, designed and executed the agency’s research agenda, and promoted a data-driven culture throughout the agency and the state. She also worked as the national research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, DC–based education policy think tank. She started her career in education as a high school mathematics teacher for District of Columbia Public Schools.

Shaw holds a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Cornell University and a master’s degree in astrophysics from the University of Maryland. She earned her doctoral degree in urban education policy with a concentration in quantitative methodology from the University of Southern California.

Shaw currently cochairs the policymakers and practitioners community group of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and is a former AEFP board member. She also sits on the board of a DC charter school.
 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Advisory Committee—which determines the Collaborative's research agenda and is made up of the people who will be affected by that research—consists of parents and students, teachers and principals, and representatives of DC public schools, DC government, and advocacy groups.

• The Council of the District of Columbia
• Council of School Officers
• DC Public Charter School Board
• District of Columbia Public Schools
• DC State Board of Education
• Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education
• Office of the State Superintendent of Education
• Washington Teacher's Union
   

RESEARCH COUNCIL

The Research Council, which designs and conducts the research in partnership with the community, includes the following organizations:

• American University School of Education
• Bellwether
• Brookings Institution
• D.C. Policy Center
• EmpowerK12
• Georgetown University
• George Washington University
• Howard University School of Education
• Mathematica
• Trinity Washington University
• University of the District of Columbia
• University of Maryland
• Urban Institute
   

STATEMENT OF INDEPENDENCE

The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the DC Education Research Collaborative or to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of DC Education Research Collaborative experts or Urban Institute experts. Further information on Urban’s funding principles is available at http://urban.org/fundingprinciples .