Julie Reed Kochanek
 | Director of Research Mailing Address: |
As Director of Research, Julie Kochanek brings more than 15 years of experience in research and evaluation of school-reform efforts with a special focus on educational leadership and organizational conditions.
Kochanek has designed and led evaluations of a teacher effectiveness program, a middle and high school intervention using response to intervention, and an increase in state funding for full-day kindergarten. Kochanek’s current work includes studies of knowledge diffusion among district administrators and the use of district-level middle and early high school data to identify indicators of dropping out of high school.
Kochanek is Co-Principal Investigator for a William T. Grant Foundation–funded study of the use of research in district decision-making.
At EDC, she is responsible for identifying and developing research and evaluation funding opportunities with states and districts across the United States. Working with a team of experienced Learning and Teaching Division researchers, she designs formative and summative program and policy evaluations, applied studies using district and state longitudinal data, as well as basic research studies.
Kochanek works with the American Institutes for Research, the Michigan Consortium for Education Research, Michigan Department of Education, Worcester Public Schools, multiple districts in Kentucky, and the states and districts in the REL-NEI region.
She is author of Building Trust for Better Schools: Research-Based Practices and coauthor of multiple chapters in Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider. She has published recently on full-day kindergarten enrollment and parent involvement activities in school improvement plans.
Before joining EDC, Kochanek was a Senior Research Associate at the American Institutes for Research, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Southern Oregon University, and a Data Analyst at the Consortium for Chicago School Research.
She received a BA from the University of Notre Dame, an MA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago.
