American Institutes for Research

Jesse D. Levin is a principal researcher at AIR, where he has been involved in a number of projects investigating educational production, school finance and adequacy, and resource allocation. He currently serves as project director for “Evaluation of the State of Hawaii Department of Education’s Implementation of the Weighted Student Formula (WSF),” the director of research for the study “Strategic School Funding for Results,” and principal analyst on the “National Evaluation of Magnet Schools.” Recent roles include project director for “Study of a New Method of Funding for Public Schools in Nevada,” as well as the studies “Resource Allocation in Rural School Districts: An Analysis of Spending and Staffing Patterns in Rural and Non-Rural School Districts in the Western Region States,” and “Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better.” His work at AIR over the past 10 years has included key roles on groundbreaking studies of educational adequacy, resource allocation and effective schooling practices, all of which draws upon his expertise in applied econometrics and quantitative methods.

Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Levin served as an economics researcher for the Institute for Research of Schooling, Labor Market and Economic Development (SCHOLAR) in the Netherlands, where he conducted research in the economics of education and labor economics and performed major countrywide studies of the efficacy of class size reduction, the differences in the effectiveness of private versus public schooling, and measuring the rate of return to education. He is co-recipient of the Association of Educational Service Agencies 2007 E. Robert Stephens Award for the research study “Similar Students, Different Results: Why Do Some Schools Do Better? A Large-scale Survey of California Elementary Schools Serving Low-Income Students.” Articles of his work have appeared in Economics of Education Review, Empirical Economics, Labour Economics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, and the Peabody Journal of Education. He also regularly serves as a referee for the journals Economics of Education Review, Education Finance and Policy, and Empirical Economics.