August 2023

On August 11, President Joe Biden announced his intention to appoint education researcher C. Kirabo Jackson as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The council provides the president with economic advice on the formulation of domestic and international economic policy based on data, research, and evidence.

Jackson,  Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy, is also a professor of economics at Northwestern, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

He has studied several important aspects of education and education policy, including the effects of school spending on educational and economic outcomes, the benefits of principal budget control for students, the importance of teacher effects on noncognitive skills and behavior, and changes in student achievement and teacher development through peer learning.

Recently, Jackson spoke at the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting in Chicago as part of the Spotlight on Chicago and the Region Series, in the session “How Research Can Help Develop a New Accountability System for Chicago Public Schools.” The presenters discussed how to bring together policymakers and researchers to judge and measure school quality in an unbiased way.

Jackson received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2020 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022.