Category: Faculty


Read stories related to faculty experts at UConn’s Neag School of Education.

GSE Lecture Series Tackles Ongoing Debate in Education

November 3, 2022

The latest installment of the Graduate School of Education’s (GSE) annual “Barbara Jackson, Ed.D. Lecture” invited Preston Green III, a professor of urban education at the University of Connecticut and educational law scholar. The lecture, “Developing a Model Civil Rights Statute in the Age of School Choice,” included discussions about the impact of public education funds on lower-income school districts and community resources


Scholar Warns of Dangers of Unregulated Charter Schools

October 26, 2022

n a lecture on Oct. 19, a leading scholar of education and law warned that allowing parents to choose to send their students to charter schools that operate without sufficient oversight will actually threaten the student’s civil rights.

“I’ve heard people make arguments about the real need for school choice,” said Preston Green III, Ed.D. He acknowledged that charter schools—a key element of school choice—can provide needed opportunities for families, but said that local governments must regulate them.


Connecticut Students Show Sharp Slide in Math and Reading Scores

October 24, 2022

The data represents the lowest scores in 4th-grade reading since 1998 and the lowest in 8th-grade math since 2000 in the state of Connecticut.

Eric Loken, a professor at UConn’s Neag School of Education who is affiliated with the Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment program, said he considered the results to be “pretty strong evidence” of a drop in student scores. “It’s good data, and the change in it is quite dramatic,” said Loken. “This is really a data source that people tend to rely on and take as a good indicator to track performance over time.”


Students With Disabilities Failed by Ontario’s Education System

October 17, 2022

And if the countless issues and complaints brought up by disabled students weren’t enough to demonstrate the importance of remote learning, Nicholas Gelbar, an Associate Research Professor at the Neag School of Education, conducted a study to consolidate it even further. Gelbar’s study, published in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, surveyed students regarding the abrupt transition to online education in the spring semester of 2020. After tabulating the data collected from 340 student survey responses on personal experiences with remote learning, Gelbar concluded that “[disabled students] were able to change how they took notes, because they were able to watch an online lecture and then watch it over again.”


The Student Mental Health Crisis: Resources for Reporters

October 14, 2022

Chafouleas and her colleagues developed their Feel Your Best Self program to help children aged 3-12 years improve ways of relating to others as they return to the classroom post-pandemic. The program represents a partnership between Chafouleas’ group, the Collaboratory on School and Child Health, and the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the world’s only graduate program in puppetry, both at the University of Connecticut.


Finding Gifted Learners Through Language Barriers

October 12, 2022

A team of Neag School of Education researchers is developing a new initiative designed to help educators overcome language barriers to identify gifted students among English learners. Project EAGLE (Eliciting Advanced Gifted Learning Evidence) is one of several gifted education grants at UConn, including the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), that address inequity in schools.



Student Achievement and Underachievement: A Conversation with Del Siegle

October 5, 2022

On this episode, meet Del Siegle, the Lynn and Ray Neag Chair for Gifted Education and Talent Development School of Education at the University of Connecticut. Siegle is also one of the creators of the Achievement-Orientation Model, a model that explores four different elements; meaningfulness, self-efficacy, environmental perception, and self-regulation. Hear from Siegle himself about student achievement, underachievement, and the connection between the two.