The Achievement Gap Initiative

Ronald Ferguson, AGI Director and Faculty Co-Chair, Lecturer In Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Senior Research Associate, Wiener Center for Social Policy

Harvard University

Scholar's website

Ronald F. Ferguson is an economist who has taught at the Kennedy School of Government since 1983. His publications cover issues in education policy, youth development programming, community development, economic consequences of skill disparities, and state and local economic development. His research for the past several years has focused on racial achievement gaps, appearing in publications of the National Research Council, the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Department of Education, Educational Research Service and others. He is the creator and director of the Tripod Project for School improvement, including a component called "Teaching the Hard Stuff" (THS). In THS, groups of teachers brainstorm to figure out why students in one teacher's classroom did poorly on a particular assignment (an "Item of Hard Stuff"). Then they propose instructional responses for the presenting teacher to try. During the late 1990s, Ferguson was Chairman of the National Community Development Policy Analysis Network. In that role, he co-edited the volume Urban Problems and Community Development, published by Brookings Institution Press. Ferguson participates in a variety of consulting and policy advisory activities on issues of education, employment, youth development, and urban development. These have recently included, for example, work with public school districts on racial and ethnic achievement gaps, expert testimony in school finance cases, and committees at the National Research Council dealing with educational testing, school reforms, and youth development programming. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his PhD from MIT, both in economics.

Papers on the AGI website:

2002	What Doesn't Meet the Eye
2003	Cultivating New Routines
June 2007	Review of Key Findings from the 2006 AGI Annual State-of-the-Research Conference
October 2005	Excellence with Equity
September 2006	New Evidence on Why Black High Schoolers Get Accused of “Acting White”

Video presentations on the AGI website:

June 2006	Welcoming Statement
June 2006	Huge Progress Stalled: Racial Gaps at 12th Grade are Smaller than in the 1970s, but Remain Large
June 2006	Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Home Intellectual Lifestyles
June 2006	Racial and SES Differences in School Behavior, Engagement and Time on Homework
June 2006	Class-to-Class Instructional Quality Differences and How They Matter
June 2009	Seven Strategic Propositions from the June 2008 AGI Conference
June 2007	Last Year’s Conference and How We’re Building On What We Learned
June 2007	Hip-Hop and self-esteem
June 2007	Framing: Structures and Identity
June 2007	How Instruction and Peer Culture Affect Student Engagement in Several Domains: Evidence from the Tripod Project
June 2008	Conference Opening
June 2008	Closing Remarks
November 2006	Does Parenting Contribute to Achievement Gaps?
March 2006	Acting White: Realities, Myths & Challenges
May 2005	Closing the Nation's Racial Achievement Gaps I
March 2009	Yes We Can! A Panel on Closing the Achievement Gaps
March 2008	Race, Identity & Achievement: What Role for Elites?”
June 2009	Profiles of Progress and Performance at the Conference?s Featured High Schools