Michal Kurlaender’s work focuses on education policy and
evaluation, particularly practices that address existing
racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequality at various stages of
the educational attainment process.
Current projects include a study of the educational attainment
and labor market outcomes of different postsecondary paths.
Kurlaender is exploring the transition from high school to
college and from college to the labor market.
She has published in a variety of academic journals and policy
venues; her research has been supported by grants from the
Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of
Education, the Association for Institutional Research, the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.
She is the Davis site director of the University of California
Educational Evaluation Center, a faculty affiliate of the Center
for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment at
Columbia University, and serves on the advisory board of the
Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity,
UC Berkeley School of Law.
Michal Kurlaender received her degree in Education Policy
from Harvard University in 2005.
In this podcast, David Figlio and Michal Kurlaender discuss how
inequality before a child is even born can compound across a
lifetime, and the difference high-quality schools can make for
low-income children.
National efforts to increase college attainment and to address
the nation’s skills gap have focused heavily on community
colleges. Understanding returns to community college programs is
particularly important for low-income students, since nearly half
of low-income students begin their college careers at community
colleges, compared to just 15 percent of high-income students.[1]
Using administrative data from California, we find that
students who earn vocational certificates and degrees see large
earnings gains that vary substantially by course of study.
DAVIS, Calif. — Center for Poverty Research faculty
affiliates in education and economics have been awarded nearly $5
million to find out how well the state prepares K-12 students for
college and careers.
Summary:
This paper estimates the earnings returns to vocational, or
career technical, education programs in the nation’s largest
community college system.
Every Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a
nonprofit organization made up of some of North America’s most
respected economists, releases its latest batch of working
papers. The papers aren’t peer-reviewed, so their conclusions are
preliminary (and occasionally flat-out wrong). But they offer an
early peek into some of the research that will shape economic
thinking in the years ahead. Here are a few of this week’s most
interesting papers.
In the classroom at Kit Carson Middle School in Sacramento,
Michal Kurlaender sits at one of four small desks pushed to face
each other. The walls are papered in yellow, red and bright blue,
and wavy corrugated borders frame a flutter of papers under the
banner “AMAZING.”
Kurlaender is interviewing a teacher as part of her evaluation of
the school’s teacher development program to improve students’
college readiness skills. The sudden, grating buzz of the class
bell startles everyone. Kurlaender smiles. “It’s nicer when it’s
the music instead,” she says.
President Obama’s proposal to make community colleges free is a
valiant effort to address the rising demand for skilled workers
throughout the nation and to improve college access for
low-income students. As states consider his proposal, they would
be wise to look to California. Our research in the state suggests
that low tuition can put higher education within reach for many
low-income students, but it is no panacea. Even with high
participation levels and nearly free community college, many
California students do not complete degrees.
In this podcast, visiting scholar Caroline Hoxby discusses her
Expanding College Opportunities Project with UC Davis Professor
of Economics Scott Carrell and Associate Professor of Education
Michal Kurlaender, including the project’s interventions with
college-bound, low-income, high-achieving students.
Center Executive Committee Member & Faculty Affiliate Michal
Kurlaender and colleague Eric Grodsky have garnered a lot of
attention, especially in light of the recent Supreme Court Ruling
on affirmative action in Fisher v. University of Texas.
This paper is forthcoming in Sociology of
Education.
