Forum Network

Prior to joining state government, Ms. Edmonds was president of Jane C. Edmonds & Associates, Inc. (JCEA), a workforce development and diversity training and consulting firm. Ms. Edmonds also is a former Chair of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), the Commonwealth's civil rights law enforcement agency. From there, she went on to serve as Director for the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for the City of Boston. Ms. Edmonds is a former elected member of the Sharon School Committee where she served two terms, one as its Chair. Additionally, Ms. Edmonds is a former member of several private and public sector boards, including: the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Education Loan Services, Inc. and The Boston Club.

Paul Harrington, is an economist at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who specializes in the economics of education and career development. For the past several years, Paul often speaks on youth-related labor market issues to a variety of workforce and education-related audiences.

Christopher N. Avery, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Public Policy, teaches analytic courses in microeconomics and statistics. His first book, The Early Admissions Game, coauthored with Andrew Fairbanks and Richard Zeckhauser, was published by Harvard University Press in March 2003. In his current research, he studies college application patterns and college enrollment choices for high school students.

Long's work applies the theory and methods of economics to examine various aspects of the market for higher education in the United States. Her research focuses on access and choice in higher education, the outcomes of college students, and the behavior of postsecondary institutions. Several of her research papers examine the enrollment and distributional effects of state and federal financial aid programs. In addition, Long has studied the effectiveness of postsecondary remediation and the impact of class size and faculty characteristics on student outcomes. Long received her doctorate and master's in economics from Harvard University and her bachelor's degree from Princeton University. She is a faculty research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and received the American Educational Research Association Dissertation Award. She was awarded the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2002-2004, in July 2005, the Chronicle of Higher Education featured her as one of the "New Voices" in higher education, and in 2008, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) awarded her the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award for excellence in research and published works on student financial assistance. She has received numerous research grants from the National Science Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, the Ford Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

David Grissmer is a senior management scientist at RAND. He holds a PhD in physics from Purdue University. His education research includes teacher supply and demand, teacher compensation and attrition patterns, analysis of national test scores to determine the causes of changing trends, analyzing state test scores to determine causes of state differences, and effects of class size reductions. He is currently working with the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House to assess the federal research and development portfolio on children and methods of improving research on children. His current work also includes developing estimates of the number and location of children at educational risk in the U.S. and analyzing achievement patterns in central city, suburban, and rural schools. He has addressed U.S. senators and representatives at caucus retreats, members of the White House staff, top Cabinet officials, governors as well as legislators and policymakers from most states on the issues of effective use of resources in education.

Frank Bidart writes poetry, and has published several volumes. He also teaches poetry workshops and 20th century poetry, both "modern" and contemporary. Currently he is editing a one-volume *Collected Poems of Robert Lowell* for his publisher, Farrar Straus & Giroux.