In this month’s episode of the NEPC Talks Education podcast, NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldaña interviews Drs. Bruce Baker and Preston Green, leading experts in K-12 school finance and school choice policy. Baker is a professor in the Department of Educational Theory, Policy, and Administration at Rutgers University. Green is the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

“If we prioritize things like teacher retention; if we prioritize things like school culture and climate as much as student achievement,” says Richard Gonzales, “everyone focuses their time, money, effort, energy toward those things.”

Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom.

Neag School’s Sport Management Program is ranked 28 out of 50, according to Intelligent.com.

“Our special education candidates are very well prepared,” says Michael Coyne, department head of Educational Psychology at UConn’s Neag School of Education. “It’s incredibly important and one of the critical skills that teachers need to have.”

From a young age, Madison Corlett ’16 (ED), ’17 MA, was excited about helping others, raising money through lemonade stands and other fundraisers, then donating the money to local causes.

Sandra M. Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Neag Endowed Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, said experts are seeing an increase in concern about mental health and emotional well-being, especially among teenagers who may be missing opportunities to pursue interests, social connection and independence, at a time when communities are also facing serious economic and health impacts.

Dr. Fumiko Hoeft, director of the Brain Imaging Research Center at the University of Connecticut and faculty member at the University of California San Francisco, and Roland Hancock, associate director of the Brain Imaging Center at the University of Connecticut, conceived the app in 2014. Hoeft, along with Devin Kearns at the University of Connecticut, John Gabriell at MIT, and the Dyslexia Center at the University of California San Francisco, are leading the project, which is currently in the final validation phase.

“I think it just revealed some of the deep inequities that have existed but didn’t really surface until it was forced to,” says Neag Professor of Educational Policy Casey Cobb. “So that was one of the main things that we’ve learned. I think a lot of schools adjusted very quickly and really made new efforts and creative efforts to keep contact with their families and their kids — with home visits in a safe manner and bringing food to families in need.”

President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education, Neag School alumnus and Connecticut’s Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona ’01 MA, ’04 6th Year, ’11 Ed.D., ’12 ELP, was officially confirmed on March 1, 2021, by the U.S. Senate. He is the first UConn graduate in history to hold a Cabinet-level position in the White House.