Student Achievement News in Brief

Fryer Named MacArthur Fellow

By Sarah D. Sparks — September 27, 2011 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Education economist Roland G. Fryer, Jr., known for his work in tracing the potential causes and educational results of the achievement gaps for minority students, has been named one of 22 new fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

As founder and director of Harvard University’s Education Innovation Laboratory and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Mr. Fryer has been at the forefront of research on the achievement gap. In the past decade, his studies have tracked how the black-white achievement gap grows through the early elementary years; how students of different races relate popularity to academic achievement; and the effectiveness of New York City education reforms, including the Harlem Children’s Zone and teacher merit-pay plans. In randomized trials at more than 250 schools in 2010, Mr. Fryer found no benefit to using financial incentives for students to improve academic achievement.

Roland G. Fryer Jr.

The MacArthur fellowship, known informally as a “genius grant,” comes with $500,000 over the next five years and includes no restrictions on how to use the money. Mr. Fryer was one of four of the 22 fellows this year connected to precollegiate education. The others are:

• Kevin Guskiewiczan, a leading concussion researcher and the founding director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, whose research prompted recent requirements that student-athletes receive baseline concussion tests before games;

• Matthew Nock, a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, who studies the causes of suicide and self-injury among adolescents; and

• Francisco Núñez, the founder of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, which works with more than 1,000 inner-city chorus students via satellite choruses.

A version of this article appeared in the September 28, 2011 edition of Education Week as Fryer Named MacArthur Fellow

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Achievement From Our Research Center Many Kids' Parents Didn't Go to College. You Can Still Motivate Them in STEM
Students whose parents did not go to college often do not feel they have the necessary support to excel STEM subjects.
6 min read
A student and parent look into a landscape of many roads and opportunities.
Danny Allison for Education Week
Student Achievement Q&A How a Tutor’s Gender Affects Girls' Interest in STEM
Pairing girls with female math tutors increases STEM interest and improves academic performance in math, a Stanford study finds.
4 min read
A group of high school girls work together to solve an algebra problem during their math class.
A group of high school girls work together to solve an algebra problem during their math class.
Allison Shelley for All4Ed
Student Achievement Spotlight Spotlight on MTSS: Pathways to Achievement
This Spotlight will help you explore effective MTSS implementation and strategies for supporting struggling learners.
Student Achievement Opinion High-Dosage Tutoring Should Be Here to Stay
Research is piling up on the effectiveness of the academic intervention, including when it is scaled up.
Alan Safran & Susanna Loeb
4 min read
Illustration of a tutor helping a student understand a subject.
iStock/Getty + Education Week