Luis Huerta

Luis A. Huerta is an Assistant Professor of Education at Teachers College-Columbia University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses in Education Policy and Sociology. His research and scholarship over the last ten years have focused on school choice reforms and school finance policy. His research on school choice reforms examines policies that advance both decentralized and market models of schooling-including charter schools, homeschools, tuition tax credits and vouchers. He has analyzed how these school choice reforms are interpreted by the communities they serve, their effect on equity and the democratic goals of schooling, the role of the government in promoting school reforms that devolve public authority to local actors, and whether these new reforms have introduced more effective and efficient forms of schooling. His research also examines school finance policy and research, with a specific focus on how legal and legislative battles over finance equity in schools and the research which has analyzed the effects of resources on student achievement, have consistently overlooked how resources are used within schools. His research applies theory grounded in organizational sociology and economics together with policy analysis frameworks, and aims to discover how these school reforms affect equity and quality in schools. Prior to joining the Teachers College faculty in January of 2002, he served as a research associate and coordinator for K-12 education policy research for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). He also served as a California public school teacher for six years. He is a contributing author to the book, Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization (Harvard University Press, 2000). He is also the author of recent articles on school choice and school finance published in Educational Policy, Journal of Education Finance, Teachers College Record, Peabody Journal of Education, Journal of Education Policy and Phi Delta Kappan. addition, he recently served as an expert witness on school finance policy in the Williams et al. v. State of California case, and as an expert consultant on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) v. State of New York case.