Andrew McEachin is a policy researcher in the economics, statistics, and sociology department at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Prior to joining RAND, he was an assistant professor of education policy at North Carolina State University and an Institute of Education Sciences postdoctoral fellow at University of Virginia's Curry School of Education. The unifying goal of his research is to generate rigorous policy-relevant evidence to help educators and policymakers in their efforts to raise student achievement and narrow achievement gaps.
His research agenda focuses on using advanced quantitative methods to study the determinants of persistent achievement gaps, as well as evaluating the effect of popular responses by policymakers and educators to reduce these gaps. Examples of these include standards-based accountability, school choice initiatives, teacher labor markets, and curricular intensification. His work has been published in highly ranked peer-reviewed education and public policy journals, including American Educational Research Journal, Education Finance and Policy, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He is also currently working on projects funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.
He received his Ph.D. in education policy and M.A. in economics from the University of Southern California and his B.A. in history from Cornell University.
Selected Publications
Domina, Thurston, Paul Hanselman, NaYoung Hwang, and Andrew McEachin, "Detracking and tracking up: Mathematics course placements in California middle schools, 2003–2013," American Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 2016
Welsh, Richard, Andrew McEachin, and Matthew Duque, "School choice, student mobility and school quality: Evidence from post-Katrina New Orleans," Education Finance and Policy, 11(2), 2016
McEachin, Andrew, Richard Welsh, and Dominic J Brewer, "The Variation in Student Achievement and Behavior within a Portfolio Management Model: Early Results from New Orleans," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(4), 2016
Domina, Thurston, Andrew McEachin, Andrew Penner, and Emily Penner, "Aiming high and falling short: California’s 8th grade algebra-for-all effort," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(3), 2015
Strunk, Katharine, Andrew McEachin, and Theresa Westover, "Does intensive district-level technical assistance improve student achievement? An evaluation of California's District Assistance and Intervention Teams," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 33(3), 2014
Polikoff, Morgan, Andrew McEachin, Stephanie Wrable, and Matthew Duque, "Waive of the future: School accountability in the waiver era," Educational Researcher, 43(1), 2014
Ahn, June, Andrew McEachin, "Student Enrollment Patterns and Achievement in Ohio’s Online Charter Schools," Educational Researcher, 46(1), 2017
McEachin, Andrew, and Allison Atteberry, "The impact of summer learning loss on measures of school performance," Education Finance and Policy (forthcoming)
