Amy N. Farley is a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado’s School of Education, where she is studying education policy and research methods. Her research agenda broadly focuses on how policies—particularly educator effectiveness reform efforts and policies enacted through the ballot initiative process—affect low-income students, students of color, and other disadvantaged populations. She has published research in this area in Educational Studies (with Michele Moses) and with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Farley is currently a Strategic Data Fellow at the Colorado Legacy Foundation, part of a two-year fellowship with the Strategic Data Project housed at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University that places analysts in partner agencies where they work to influence policy decisions that impact student outcomes and transform key policy and management decisions through robust data analysis.

Matthew N. Gaertner is a research scientist in the Center for College and Career Success at Pearson. His methodological interests include multilevel models, categorical data analysis, and item response theory. Substantively, his research focuses on the effects of educational policies and reforms at the postsecondary and K–12 levels on student access, persistence, and achievement. Gaertner’s work has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Harvard Law and Policy Review, and his research on affirmative action has been recognized by numerous professional organizations. He was awarded a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and an Association for Institutional Research Dissertation Grant. He also received the 2012 Charles F. Elton Best Paper Award from the Association for Institutional Research and was named the 2011 Outstanding Doctoral Graduate at the University of Colorado.

Michele S. Moses is a professor of educational foundations, policy, and practice and the associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She specializes in philosophy and education policy studies, with particular expertise in higher education policy issues related to race, class, and gender, such as affirmative action. Her research agenda centers on understanding how race-conscious education policies foster diversity, equality, and social justice and, consequently, contribute to a better democratic society. Her book publications include Embracing Race: Why We Need Race-Conscious Education Policy (Teachers College Press, 2002) and Living with Moral Disagreement: The Enduring Controversy about Affirmative Action (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming). Moses has been a Spencer Dissertation Fellow, National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Fulbright New Century Scholar and is a fellow of the National Education Policy Center. In 2009 she was awarded the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association.