News Release

Johns Hopkins University research scientists Joyce Epstein and James McPartland are among 44 scholars who were recently named American Educational Research Association Fellows.

The fellows were nominated by their peers in recognition of their exceptional scientific or scholarly contributions to education research or significant contributions to the field through the development of research opportunities and settings. The AERA Fellows are known both nationally and internationally. Through the fellows program, the association aims to convey its commitment to excellence in research and to underscore to new scholars the importance of sustained research contributions in the field. The fellows were inducted today at the association's 90th Annual Meeting in San Diego.

James M. McPartland is director of the Center for Social Organization of Schools and a research professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins. Beginning with his participation in the influential 1964 Equality of Education Opportunities (known as the Coleman Report), he has conducted survey research and experimental studies of variations in school effectiveness for low-income and minority students. His publications include new entries in the Encyclopedia of Educational Research and the Encyclopedia of Sociology, as well as numerous articles in education research and sociology journals. He is the co-author of the 2003 volume Comprehensive Reform for Urban High Schools (Teachers College Press). For more than 10 years, McPartland has headed a team developing and evaluating Talent Development High Schools, a comprehensive reform model that features an academy structure of schools-within- the-school, teacher teams to create a personalized learning environment, and an adolescent literacy and mathematics instructional program with expert peer coaches to narrow and close student achievement gaps. He is frequently invited to work with government agencies and foundations to improve American high schools with populations of students at risk for academic failure and dropping out. McPartland received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Cornell University and a doctorate in sociology from Johns Hopkins University.

Joyce L. Epstein is director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) and a research professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins, the same department where she earned her doctorate. She has written more than 100 publications on school, family, and community connections. She is author of a text for college courses for future teachers and administrators, School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools (Westview Press, 2001) and co-author of Family Reading Night (Eye on Education, 2008). In 1995, she established NNPS, which guides schools, districts, and state leaders to develop research-based programs of family and community involvement. Among her awards are the 2005 American Orthopsychiatric Association's Blanche F. Ittleson Award for scholarship and service to strengthen school and family connections. Her current research focuses on how district leaders help schools develop partnership programs that reach all families and increase student success. In all of her work, she is interested in the connections of research, policy, and practice.

More information about the fellowship program is available at www.aera.net/newsmedia/ Default.aspx?menu_id=60&id=7532.