Matthew Kraft
Matthew Kraft is a Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research and teaching interests include the economics of education, education policy analysis, and applied quantitative methods for causal inference. His work focuses on two primary areas: improving the effectiveness of K-12 educators and schools, and examining how education systems are affected by climate change and can be part of the solution. Matt served as a Senior Economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2024-25. He is also the founder and faculty director of SustainableED - an initiative focused on advancing research at the intersection of education systems and our changing climate.
He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles on topics including hiring, professional development, evaluation, working conditions, strikes, shortages, and layoffs in the teacher labor market; interpreting effect sizes in education research; school-based tutoring and mentoring programs, and learning time in school. Previously, he taught 8th grade English in Oakland USD and 9th grade humanities at Berkeley High School in California. He holds a doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education as well as a master's in International Comparative Education and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.
Publications
- Sohil Malik, Matthew Kraft, Grace Falken. U.S. Schools’ Proximity to Environmental Hazard Sites: A National Analysis. | The Sustainable Education Research Initiative
- Matthew Kraft, Sohil Malik, Grace Falken. Education and Climate Change: Synthesizing the Evidence to Guide Future Research. | The Sustainable Education Research Initiative
- Melissa Arnold Lyon, Matthew Kraft. Elevating Education in Politics: How Teacher Strikes Shape Congressional Election Campaigns.
- Matthew Kraft, Eric J. Brunner, Shaun M. Dougherty, David J. Schwegman. Teacher Accountability Reforms and the Supply and Quality of New Teachers.
- Matthew Kraft, Nicole S. Simon, Melissa Arnold Lyon. Sustaining a Sense of Success: The Importance of Teacher Working Conditions During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
- Matthew Kraft, Manuel Monti-Nussbaum. The Big Problem with Little Interruptions to Classroom Learning.
- Matthew Kraft, Heather Hill. Developing Ambitious Mathematics Instruction through Web-Based Coaching: A Randomized Field Trial.
- Matthew Kraft. Interpreting Effect Sizes of Education Interventions.
- Matthew Kraft, Alvin Christian. In Search of High-Quality Evaluation Feedback: An Administrator Training Field Experiment.
- Matthew Kraft, David Blazar, Dylan Hogan. The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence.
- Matthew Kraft, Manuel Monti-Nussbaum. Can Schools Enable Parents to Prevent Summer Learning Loss? A Text-Messaging Field Experiment to Promote Literacy Skills.
- Matthew Kraft. Engaging Parents Through Better Communication Systems.
- Matthew Steinberg, Matthew Kraft. The Sensitivity of Teacher Performance Ratings to the Design of Teacher Evaluation Systems.
- Matthew Kraft, Allison Gilmour. Revisiting The Widget Effect: Teacher Evaluation Reforms and the Distribution of Teacher Effectiveness.
- Megin Charner-Laird, Monica Ng, Susan Moore Johnson, Matthew Kraft, John Papay, Stefanie Reinhorn. Gauging Goodness of Fit: Teachers’ Assessments of their Instructional Teams in High-Poverty Schools.
- John Papay, Matthew Kraft. Developing Workplaces Where Teachers Stay, Improve, and Succeed.
- David Blazar, Matthew Kraft. Teacher and Teaching Effects on Students’ Attitudes and Behaviors.
- Matthew Kraft, David Blazar. Individualized Coaching to Improve Teacher Practice Across Grades and Subjects: New Experimental Evidence.
- Matthew Kraft, William Marinell, Darrick Yee. School organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement: Evidence from panel data.
- John Papay, Matthew Kraft. The productivity costs of inefficient hiring practices: Evidence from late teacher hiring.
- Matthew Kraft, Allison Gilmour. Can Principals Promote Teacher Development as Evaluators? A Case Study of Principals’ Views and Experiences.
- Martin West, Matthew Kraft, Amy Finn, Rebecca Martin, Angela Duckworth, Christopher Gabrieli, John Gabbriele. Promise and Paradox: Measuring Students’ Non-cognitive Skills and the Impact of Schooling.
- David Blazar, Matthew Kraft. Exploring Mechanisms of Effective Teacher Coaching: A Tale of Two Cohorts From a Randomized Experiment.
- Matthew Kraft, John Papay, Susan Moore Johnson, Megin Charmer-Laird, Monica Ng, Stefanie Reinhorn. Educating Amidst Uncertainty: The Organizational Supports Teachers Need to Serve Students in High-poverty, Urban Schools.
- Matthew Kraft, Todd Rogers. The underutilized potential of teacher-to-parent communication: Evidence from a field experiment.
- Matthew Kraft, Shaun M. Dougherty. The Effect of Teacher-Family Communication on Student Engagement: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment.
- Heather Hill, Charalambos Y. Charalambous, Matthew Kraft. When Rater Reliability Is Not Enough: Teacher Observation Systems and a Case for the Generalizability Study.
