Marcus Winters

May 1

Faculty Director, Wheelock Educational Policy Center
Professor, Boston University

Marcus A. Winters is a professor in the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies department at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. His research focuses on educational policy, with an emphasis on school choice, accountability, and policies that impact teacher quality.

Winters’s research has been published in a variety of academic journals including Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, and Economics of Education Review.

He has also written numerous articles on educational policy topics for popular media outlets including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today.

Winters holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Arkansas.

Related research

All research

K-12, Early literacy, Educational opportunity

The Effects of Grade Retention in Indiana Schools

K-12, Early literacy, Educational opportunity

Analysis of the impacts of the threat of grade retention and retention itself in Indiana public schools.

K-12, Early literacy, Educational opportunity

K-12, Special education, Educational opportunity

Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States

K-12, Special education, Educational opportunity

Special education serves more than one in seven U.S. students, yet its causal impact remains understudied. In this paper, we estimate the effect of individualized supports with an event-study design that tracks achievement around initial classification. The research shows students’ scores decline prior to placement and rise sharply afterward. Overall, individualized supports substantially increase learning productivity.

K-12, Special education, Educational opportunity

K-12, Special education, Co-teaching

Service Delivery Models: Impacts for Students With and Without Disabilities

K-12, Special education, Co-teaching

This research study offers some of the field’s first causal evidence of how different service delivery models impact student achievement and behavior.

K-12, Special education, Co-teaching

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

Reclassifying English Learners

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

The authors of this study use data from Indiana to examine the causal effects of English learner reclassification on later student outcomes, including test scores and attendance rates.

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

K-12, Educator workforce, Teacher licensure

Licensure Tests and Teacher Supply in Connecticut

K-12, Educator workforce, Teacher licensure

This research project uses longitudinal data from Connecticut to examine the association between teachers’ performance on required subject-matter licensure tests (specifically, the Praxis II assessment suite) and their later effectiveness at improving student test scores. The authors then estimate the causal effect of failing a first attempt at one of these Praxis II tests on an individual’s likelihood of eventually becoming a licensed teacher in the state.

K-12, Educator workforce, Teacher licensure

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

Deconstructing the EL Gap

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

Across U.S. schools, students classified as English learners (ELs) tend to achieve lower educational outcomes than their non-EL peers. What explains these differences? Are they a product of ELs’ developing English language proficiency and/or the services they receive at school, or do other factors play a role? The authors of this study attempt to deconstruct the “EL gap” in Massachusetts by examining the extent to which differences in outcomes between ELs and non-ELs can be attributed to factors that are unrelated to a student’s English proficiency or receipt of EL services.

K-12, Multilingual learners, Educational opportunity

K-12, Educational opportunity, Early literacy

The Effect of Retention Under Mississippi’s Test-Based Promotion Policy

K-12, Educational opportunity, Early literacy

Study conducted by Boston University's Wheelock Educational Policy Center evaluating the impact of Mississippi’s test-based promotion policy - requiring students to demonstrate reading proficiency before moving on to the third grade. Results suggest positive results, particularly strong in reading, into the 6th grade for those who were retained.

K-12, Educational opportunity, Early literacy

K-12, Educational opportunity, School enrollment, Charter schools

Enrollment Flexibility and Charter School Impacts: The Effect of Backfill on Students in Massachusetts Charter Middle Schools

K-12, Educational opportunity, School enrollment, Charter schools

This study leverages Massachusetts’s adoption of a statewide requirement for charter schools to backfill vacancies within some grades to provide the first causal estimates for the effect of incorporating new students on the performance of incumbent charter school pupils. Using data from the universe of Massachusetts public school students enrolled in Grades 5 through 8 from 2007-2008 to 2013-2014, this study compares changes in student achievement in impacted vs. not-impacted grades within Boston charter schools to the patterns of student achievement within traditional public schools and charter schools outside of Boston.

K-12, Educational opportunity, School enrollment, Charter schools