Martin West

Martin West
Martin West
Professor of Education,
Harvard University

Martin West studies the politics of K–12 education and how education policies affect student learning and social-emotional development. He is a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and editor-in-chief of Education Next, a journal of opinion and research on education policy. He is deputy director of Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance as well as a member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. He previously worked as senior advisor to the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; taught at Brown University; and was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution. West received his PhD in government and social policy from Harvard University.

updated 2020

Contributing topics
Educational governance & policy
Educator workforce & effectiveness
Supporting students’ social-emotional, mental & physical health
Understanding, measuring & improving student outcomes
Contributing initiatives
CORE-PACE Research Partnership
COVID-19 Recovery
Getting Down to Facts II
LCFF Research Collaborative
Martin West in the Media
: Newark Students Faced Severe Pandemic Learning Loss, New Data Show
: How Schools Can Help Children Recover from COVID Closures
: Elevating Student Voice in Education
: Charter School Authorizers Come Under Greater Scrutiny in California
: Major National Research Project Finds California Education Beginning on Right P…
Publications by Martin West
Brief
What Do Changes in Social-Emotional Learning Tell Us About Changes in Academic and Behavioral Outcomes?
Prior work has shown that levels of self-reported student social-emotional learning (SEL) predict student achievement levels—as well as student achievement gains—but little has been done to understand if within-student changes in student reports of…
Trends in Student Social-Emotional Learning: Evidence From the First Large-Scale Panel Student Survey
Trends in Student Social-Emotional Learning
Evidence From the First Large-Scale Panel Student Survey
A growing number of school systems use self-report surveys to track students’ social-emotional development as a tool to inform policy and practice. In this article, the first large-scale panel survey of social-emotional learning (SEL) simulates how…
School Differences in Social–Emotional Learning Gains: Findings From the First Large-Scale Panel Survey of Students
School Differences in Social-Emotional Learning Gains
Findings From the First Large-Scale Panel Survey of Students
Measures of school-level growth in student outcomes are common tools for assessing the impacts of schools. The vast majority of these measures use standardized tests as the outcome of interest, even though emerging evidence demonstrates the…
GDTFII Brief Charter
Charter Schools in California
When California became the second state to authorize charter schools in 1992, the state’s system for authorization, oversight, and renewal of charter schools was in many ways a bold experiment. The concept was new, and the impacts on both student…