John Papay

John Papay is the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Associate Professor of Education and Economics and the Director of the Annenberg Institute. His research focuses on policies that affect teachers and their work, as well as how schools and policies perpetuate or ameliorate educational inequality. Papay conducts the majority of his research in collaborative partnerships with policymakers and practitioners. He currently leads the Educational Opportunity in Massachusetts project, a long-standing partnership with state education agencies in Massachusetts. He is a founding senior researcher of the Research Partnership for Professional Learning, which seeks to identify the features of professional learning that improve teacher development, with a specific focus on improving classroom experiences and outcomes for students from historically marginalized groups. Locally in Rhode Island, he has helped build a multi-sector partnership to bring together the Rhode Island Department of Education, local school districts and local education leaders to solve pressing educational challenges in Rhode Island. A former high school history teacher, John earned his doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.