About the National Education Policy Center

Professor Kevin Welner teaches educational policy and law at the CU Boulder School of Education. He’s also the director of the National Education Policy Center, which works to build bridges between the research world and the broader public. Kevin has authored or edited a dozen books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, including a casebook for law school students about education law, and a book called Closing the Opportunity Gap, which is the foundation for his recent work about the importance of improving children’s opportunities to learn inside and outside of school, including the Price of Opportunity Project. Welner has been recognized by the American Educational Research Association as a Fellow and been given the AERA's Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award (in 2017), Early Career Award (in 2006), Palmer O. Johnson Award (best article in 2004). The Horace Mann League gave Welner its Outstanding Public Educator Award in 2018. He received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from UCSB and his J.D. and Ph.D. from UCLA.

NEPC Director Alex Molnar founded NEPC with Kevin Welner in 2010.  He is a Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and also co-directs the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU). Molnar's work has examined curriculum and instruction topics, market-based education reforms, and policy formation. He founded and directed the Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation (CERAI) at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and for six years (1995-2001) was the principal investigator for the research evaluation of Wisconsin’s SAGE class size reduction program. From 2001-2011 he directed the Education Policy Studies Research Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University.  Molnar is an internationally recognized expert on school commercialism; his annual reports on commercializing trends in schools have become standard reference works for experts in the field. His most recent books are Commercialism in education: From democratic ideal to market commodity (2005), Think tank research quality: Lessons for policymakers, the media, and the public (with Kevin Welner, Pat Hinchey and Don Weitzman) (2010), and Sold Out: How Marketing in School Threatens Children's Well-Being and Undermines their Education (with Faith Boninger) (2015). Molnar has a B.A. in history, political science, and education; Masters degrees in history and in social welfare; a Specialist's Certificate in educational administration; and a Ph.D. in urban education.

Michelle Renée Valladares is Associate Director of the National Education Policy Center and Faculty Affiliate of the CU Boulder School of Education. She leads and partners in a series of projects that aim to increase educational opportunities for all students. This includes serving as CO-PI of the Research Hub for Youth Organizing and the Price of Opportunity Project, as the media and policymaker contact for NEPC, and as a member of the Schools of Opportunity Project leadership.  Michelle leads a Research Hub study of youth organizing and &youth development in California and supervises a research practice partnership with the Cuba Independent School District in New Mexico. For the Price of Opportunity, Michelle leads our partnerships with school finance advocates, contributes to research design, analysis and writing and manages the project team. Michelle also co-leads the Caminos de Bilinguismo partnership with Boulder Valley School District. Michelle has conducted original research on indicator systems, youth and adult education organizing, parent and family engagement, and school turnaround. Michelle has a PhD in education from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Faith Boninger is a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and also co-directs the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU). She researches and writes about commercial activities in schools. Faith brings to this work a background in social psychology (Ph.D., Ohio State University), particularly an interest in persuasion and communication processes. For the past several years she has co-authored CERU’s Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends. Additional publications include A National Survey of the Types and Extent of the Marketing of Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value in Schools, with Alex Molnar, David Garcia, and Bruce Merrill (2006) and Policy and Statutory Responses to Advertising and Marketing in Schools, with Alex Molnar and Bill Koski (2010). Her book, Sold Out: How Marketing in School Threatens Children's Well-Being and Undermines their Education, with Alex Molnar, was released in 2015.

Samuel E. Abrams is the director of NEPC’s International Partnership for the Study of Educational Privatization (IPSEP), launched in 2024, and the author of Education and the Commercial Mindset (Harvard University Press, 2016). In addition, he has written on education policy for The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, and Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. From 2015 to 2024, he served as the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2022-23, he served as a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Turku in Finland, where he remains a visiting scholar. For his advancement of the understanding of Finnish education in the United States, he was knighted by the Finnish government in 2012. Abrams earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia. 

Elaine Duggan is NEPC’s production coordinator and website consultant. 

She has a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Clinical Social Work from Loyola University of Chicago. She has worked in editing and graphic design for over 30 years.

 William J. Mathis is a Senior Policy Advisor for the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder and served as the founding Managing Director of the center. He is the former superintendent of schools for the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union in Brandon, Vermont. He is a co-recipient of the Horace Mann League’s national Outstanding Public Educator award, was a National Superintendent of the Year finalist and a Vermont Superintendent of the Year. He also served as Vice-chair of the Vermont State Board of Education.  He has published or presented research on finance, assessment, accountability, standards, cost-effectiveness, education reform, history, and Constitutional issues. He also serves on various editorial boards and frequently publishes commentaries on educational policy issues.

Gene V Glass is a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and Regents' Professor Emeritus from Arizona State University. Trained originally in statistics, his interests broadened to include psychotherapy research, evaluation methodology, and policy analysis. He was twice (1968, 1970) honored with the Palmer O. Johnson award of the American Educational Research Association; in 1984, he received the Paul Lazarsfeld Award of the American Evaluation Association. He is a recipient of the Cattell Award of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. His work on meta-analysis of psychotherapy outcomes (with M.L. Smith) was named as one of the Forty Studies that Changed Psychology in the book of the same name by Roger R. Hock (1999). His Ph.D. was awarded by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in educational psychology with a minor in statistics.

Anna Deese is a doctoral student in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a Graduate Research Assistant for the National Education Policy Center and joined the Price of Opportunity Project in 2020. While she has been involved in nearly all project phases and a myriad of roles since joining the team, her primary responsibility has been with the costing team. This role takes advantage of her deep knowledge of district budgeting built during her prior experience as an elected school board member in Montana and while earning her administrative licensure. Anna has also served as a director of a professional development company, earned National Board Certification as a science teacher, worked for a management consulting firm, and is a veteran. She holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from the University of Montana and a B.S. in Biology from Indiana University. Her research interests focus on school boards and exploring the value of and concerns with local control in the pursuit for educational equity. 

Jonathon Sawyer is a Ph.D. candidate working with the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Jonathon co-leads community-based research in Michigan with the nationwide Price of Opportunity Project (POP). Jonathon also contributes to qualitative data analysis on the larger, multi-state POP project. His dissertation research examines the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment and the constitutional rights of students attending religious schools. Jonathon has presented research on anti-discrimination law and education policy with the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Jonathon holds a master’s degree in education policy from the University of Colorado Boulder and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas, where he pursued an interdisciplinary course of study in music, history, and world religion.   

Monica Obregon (she/her) is a doctoral student in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She works as a Graduate Research Assistant for the National Education Policy Center on the Price of Opportunity Project. Monica received her B.A in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Texas San Antonio and a M.Ed. in education leadership and policy with a focus in Education policy and planning from the University of Texas Austin. Her research interests are in school finance equity, state funding formulas for education, and decision-making processes among political leaders in education policies at the state and federal level.