NORC Senior Fellow Becky Smerdon is a nationally recognized expert in high school reform. Over her career, Smerdon has built a body of domestic education research and evaluation, with particular focus on socially disadvantaged youth and education reform. During her 15 years in the field of education research and evaluation, she has designed and led numerous studies, including: a formative and summative evaluation of Baltimore's high school reform initiative, a study of the math/science pipeline in North Carolina's reforming high schools, and a project developing indicators of high school reform implementation funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She was also founding director of the U.S. Department of Education's National High School Center and Principal Investigator of the national evaluation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's small school initiative. Smerdon recently completed the prestigious Senior Urban Fellowship working with Washington, D.C, public schools to develop early warning indicators, and was previously a First Focus Fellow providing policymakers with research-based recommendations on policy briefs and draft legislation.
Smerdon has written for many different audiences, from the research community (peer-reviewed research journals and book chapters) to the U.S. Department of Education (reports, briefs, press releases) to state, district, and school personnel (reports, briefs, toolkits). She publishes in academic journals such as American Educational Research Journal, Sociology of Education, Teachers College Record, and Research in the Sociology of Education and Socialization. Smerdon has published two books, Saving America's High Schools in 2009, and Pressing Forward: Increasing and Expanding Rigor and Relevance in America's High Schools in 2012.
Smerdon often presents to local and national audiences, including the American Educational Research Association, the American Sociological Association, the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National Academies of Science, as well as news media, school boards, state and district personnel, and parent groups.
Smerdon is also founder and managing director of Quill Research Associates, LLC, a small, woman-owned research and evaluation consulting firm.