About RUth curran Neild
Ruth Curran Neild
Research Scientist,
Johns Hopkins University
Ruth Curran Neild, Ph.D. is a research scientist at the Everyone Graduates Center. Her scholarly interests focus on improving educational outcomes for urban youth through transforming their school experiences. She has published in the areas of high school choice, teacher quality, the ninth grade transition, high school reform, and high school graduation and dropout. She is committed to communicating clearly about research findings to practitioners and policymakers and is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops.
Recent publications include:
Within-school Variation in Teacher Quality: The Case of the Ninth Grade (2008, American Journal of Education, with Elizabeth Farley-Ripple). This article uses data from a large urban school district to examine disparities in teacher quality between ninth graders and upper grades students.
The Effect of Teacher Certification on Middle Grades Achievement in an Urban District (2008, Educational Policy, with Elizabeth Farley-Ripple and Vaughan Byrnes). This article uses merged teacher and student data for a large district to examine the effects of different types of certifications (elementary, secondary subject certification, special education certification, or emergency certification) on academic growth in middle grades mathematics and science.
Connecting Entrance and Departure: The Transition to Ninth Grade and High School Dropout (2008, Education and Urban Society, with Scott Stoner-Eby and Frank Furstenberg). This article uses survey data and student record data to demonstrate the relationship between academic difficulty during ninth grade and high school dropout.
Unfulfilled Promise (2006, with Robert Balfanz), a widely-cited report on high school dropout in Philadelphia. In addition to providing detailed assessments of the annual and cohort rates of dropout in Philadelphia, the report identified several high-yield predictors of dropout in the 8th and 9th grades. This report was produced for Project U-Turn, a communitywide effort to reduce the high school dropout rate in Philadelphia.
Current projects:
Current projects include a follow-up report on the economic consequences of high school dropout, using merged high school record data and state wage records; a study of outcomes for students who pursued career and technical education in high school; and a randomized trial of strategies for teaching algebra 1 to under-prepared students.
Education:
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Sociology
B.A., Bryn Mawr College, History and Sociology