Spencer Foundation Grants Awarded for Collaborative Projects
Amy Ellen Schwartz, director of Steinhardt’s Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP), and Sean Corcoran, assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions, have each been awarded grants from the Spencer Foundation.Schwartz’s $400,000 grant is for a project called ‘Trajectories of Immigrant Performance Over Time.’ With co-principal investigator Leanna Stiefel, Wagner School professor of economics and a faculty fellow of IESP, Schwartz will study the academic paths of New York City immigrant children in order to learn why academic success eludes some through their middle and high school years.
Corcoran will collaborate with FAS Politics Professor Howard Rosenthal and Princeton University Professor Thomas Romer on ‘The Political Economy of Inequality in America’s Public Schools.’ The $204,000 grant will enable the researchers to collect and synthesize the institutional details of state finance systems to combine demographic, financial, and political data on states and school districts. The database will be the first of its kind to be made publicly available to the research community.