Kevin Welner

Professor, Education Policy & Law; Director, National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado

Kevin G. Welner is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, School of Education, specializing in educational policy and law. He is director of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC).

Welner’s present research examines the use and misuse of research in policymaking and explores various issues concerning the intersection between education rights litigation and educational opportunity scholarship. He also continues to examine issues of tracking and detracking. His past research studied small-school reform, tuition-tax-credit vouchers, and the change process associated with equity-minded reform efforts – reforms aimed at benefiting those who hold less powerful school and community positions.

Dr. Welner teaches courses in educational policy, program evaluation, school law, and social foundations of education. He has authored or edited 11 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, including 2016’s law school casebook, Education and the Law (co-authored with Stuart Biegel and Bob Kim) and 2013’s Closing the Opportunity Gap (co-edited with Prudence Carter). Welner is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Welner's present research examines the use and misuse of research in policymaking and explores various issues concerning the intersection between education rights litigation and educational opportunity scholarship. His research has also explored issues of tracking and detracking, small-school reform, tuition-tax-credit vouchers, and the change process associated with equity-minded reform efforts – reforms aimed at benefiting those who hold less powerful school and community positions. He received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from UCSB and his J.D. and Ph.D. from UCLA.

More information about the National Education Policy Center can be found here: http://nepc.colorado.edu/