Information about Report Authors and Selected Researchers

Michael W. Kirst has been Professor of Education and Business Administration at Stanford University since 1969. He is a faculty affiliate with the Department of Political Science, and has a courtesy appointment with the Graduate School of Business. Dr. Kirst received his bachelor's degree in economics from Dartmouth College, his M.P.A. in government and economics from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before joining the Stanford University faculty, Dr. Kirst held several positions with the federal government, including Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment and Poverty, and Director of Program Planning and Evaluation for the Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education in the U.S. Office of Education (now the U.S. Department of Education). He was a Budget Examiner in the Federal office of Budget and Management, and Associate Director of the White House Fellows. He was a program analyst for the Title I ESEA Program at its inception in 1965. Dr. Kirst is active in several professional organizations. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. He has been a member of the National Academy of Education since 1979. He was Vice-President of the American Educational Research Association, a commissioner of the Education Commission of the States, and associate editor of the Journal of Educational Evaluation and Policy. Professor Kirst was the president of the California State Board of Education from 1977 to 1981. Dr. Kirst has authored ten books, including The Political Dynamics of American Education (2001). Professor Kirst has published articles on school finance politics, curriculum politics, intergovernmental relations, as well as education reform policies. In 2000 Kirst led a team that produced Crucial Issues in California Education 2000: Are the Reform Pieces Fitting Together? Dr. Kirst is Co-Director of Policy Analysis for California Education (consortium of Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, and U.S.C.), a California state education policy research group funded by the Hewlett Foundation. He is a member of the management and research staff of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, a federally funded center.

Andrea Venezia is a Senior Policy Consultant and Project Director at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. She directed K-16 projects in the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research (SIHER), including the Bridge Project. Venezia earned a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin (1999), a master’s degree in Administration and Policy Analysis in Higher Education from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Pomona College. She focuses much of her research and policy work on connections between high school and colleges, with a particular interest on students who are historically underrepresented in postsecondary education. Prior to joining SIHER, Venezia worked in a variety of state, federal, and not-for-profit organizations, including the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Education Goals Panel, and the American Institutes for Research. She has done consulting for a range of organizations, including SRI International, Policy Analysis for California Education, the Texas Education Agency, the Education Commission of the States, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers. She has authored and co-authored several publications on education reform, including a recent article in Phi Delta Kappan (2001 with Michael W. Kirst), a paper for the Education Commission of the States entitled, “A Student-Centered P-16 Accountability Model” (May 2002), and a chapter on K-16 reform in California in Crucial Issues in California Education 2000: Are the Reform Pieces Fitting Together?, published by Policy Analysis for California Education.

Anthony Lising Antonio is Assistant Professor of Education and Assistant Director of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research at Stanford University. He joined the faculty in 1998, shortly after finishing his doctoral work in Education at UCLA. His research addresses many of the major issues currently facing American higher education, including equity in access to college, faculty of color in higher education, and student socialization in multicultural campus environments. He is an active member of the American Educational Research Association and the Association for the Study of Higher Education and sits on the editorial boards for Change Magazine, the Journal of College Student Development, and the Review of Higher Education.

 

Researchers (and the state in which they conducted research)

Andrea Conklin Bueschel (Oregon) has spent her professional career working on high school to college transition issues. A former member of the admission staffs at Bates College and Stanford University, Bueschel has a specific interest in finding ways to improve postsecondary opportunities for historically underrepresented students. In addition, she has worked on college campuses in student affairs and alumni relations capacities and as a counselor for high school students. Bueschel has also served as a researcher and managing director for an educational consulting group, with a focus on the alignment of high school and college policies in California. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at Stanford University. Bueschel holds master's degrees in education and in sociology from Stanford University. Her doctoral research is on students from families in which no one has attended college.

Ann Merck MacLellan (Maryland) is an associate professor of sociology at The Community College of Baltimore County and was a research assistant for the K-12 field research component of the Bridge Project. She was also the principal investigator for the Bridge Project’s community college study in Maryland. Her research interests include the effects of high stakes accountability on school reform, learning outcomes, K-16 transitions, and community college student persistence. In addition to authoring and co-authoring reports for the Bridge Project, she has recently published "School Improvement Plans in Schools on Probation: A Comparative Content Analysis Across Three Accountability Systems" in Educational Administration Quarterly (with H. Mintrop and M. Quintero, 2001). MacLellan earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership from The University of Maryland at College Park.