Release

UAlbany's Wyckoff Appointed to Congressional Panel to Study Teacher Preparation Across the U.S.

Contact: Catherine Herman (518) 437-4980

ALBANY, N.Y. (February 16, 2006) -- The University at Albany's Jim Wyckoff, a professor of public administration, policy and economics at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, has been selected to serve on the advisory panel for a Congressionally-commissioned study of the nature of teacher preparation programs across the country. The study will be conducted by the National Research Council (NRC).

The panel will assess research on the ways in which teachers are prepared throughout the country. The panel will ultimately advise policy makers on how to improve the process. The $1.5 million study was commissioned by Congress and is anticipated to last two and a half years. The goal is to find ways to uniformly improve teacher preparation and education across the nation.

Wyckoff is working with UAlbany's Hamp Lankford of the Economics Department and Don Boyd of the Center for Policy Research on examining how teacher preparation can improve the outcomes for New York City students and the retention of teachers in New York City public schools. Wyckoff has written on a variety of educational issues, including school choice, equity in school spending, allocation of school expenditures, special education funding and teacher retention. In addition to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Study of Teacher Preparation Programs, he directs the Education Finance Research Consortium, serves on the editorial boards of Education Finance and Policy and the Economics of Education Review, and is a member of the Scientific Review Panel, U.S. Department of Education.