Obama Taps Hedges for Key Education Post

EVANSTON, Ill. --- President Barack Obama has tapped a Northwestern University faculty member to become a key member of his educational advisory team. Larry Hedges, Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy, has been nominated to the National Board for Education Sciences.

If confirmed by the Senate, Hedges will become one of 15 voting members of the National Board for Education Sciences. The board advises and consults with the director of the Institute of Education Sciences (the Department of Education’s research arm) on educational policy and research priorities. 

Hedges -- who holds appointments in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education and Social Policy and the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) -- is best known for developing statistical methods for meta-analysis (a statistical analysis of the results of multiple studies that combines their findings) in the social, medical and biological sciences. His work is a key component of evidence-based social research.

“As one of the field’s leading authorities on education statistics and program evaluation, Larry will bring the good judgment that President Obama needs on research priorities and policies for the Institute of Education Sciences,” said IPR Director and School of Education and Social Policy Professor Fay Lomax Cook. 

Hedges will join nationally recognized scholars and education experts on the National Board for Education Sciences, including the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the dean of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. 

Hedges -- currently president of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness -- joined the Northwestern faculty in 2005, and co-launched IPR’s Center for Improving Methods for Quantitative Policy Research.

An elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he also is the co-author or co-editor of eight books and monographs, including the seminal “Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis: A Practical Guide to Modern Methods of Meta-Analysis” (with Ingram Olkin).

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