State of Education Conference

Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership University of Florida, College of Education

Dr. Christopher Redding is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Florida’s College of Education. Dr. Redding earned his doctorate in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University. Guided by a commitment to equity and diversity, he studies how students’ learning opportunities and outcomes can be improved within schools, whether through the recruitment and retention of a high-quality, racially diverse teacher workforce, school improvement, or equitable access to school programs. He has published over thirty peer-reviewed articles that apply rigorous research methods using survey and administrative data to answer pressing education policy questions in these areas. His work has been supported by grants from the Office of Special Education Programs as well as the American Educational Research Association and has been published in outlets including the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Review of Educational Research. His work has also been featured in a number of media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Education Week, among others.

Director, Office of Research Quality Assurance; Senior Economist; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Susan M. Gates is a senior economist at RAND whose research covers a wide range of topics including school leadership, talent management, organizational effectiveness, and entrepreneurship. Susan’s recent school leadership work examines what principal preparation programs, school districts, and states are doing to improve school leadership. She co-led two multi-year studies for The Wallace Foundation focused on their Principal Pipeline Initiative (PPI) and University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). PPI was an effort to enhance the quality of school leadership in six large urban districts through improvements to pre-service preparation, principal standards, recruitment and selection, and early career support. UPPI supported university-based principal preparation program collaboration with district and state partners to improve program quality and principal effectiveness. Susan also led a study based on a 2019 national survey of school district leaders that examined their use of and interest in principal pipelines. Additionally, Susan co-led multi-year evaluations of principal preparation and support programs funded by grants from the Department of Education i3 program. Susan’s school leadership work is informed by over 25 years of research on talent and resource management issues for the Department of Defense including studies of the defense acquisition workforce and the military child care system. In addition to her research activities, Susan serves as the Director of RAND’s Office of Research Quality Assurance and is a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Susan received her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford Graduate School of Business and her M.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Stanford University.