Dr. Daniel Long is a Senior Research Scientist at NWEA, a division of HMH, conducting policy research and MAP Growth data analysis for partner states and districts. Dr. Long has more than 30 years of experience as a research scientist and educator. Dr. Long developed a strong passion to improve educational policies as a sixth-grade bilingual math and science teacher in South Central Los Angeles in the 1990s. Since leaving the classroom, he has conducted quantitative, quasi-experimental, and experimental research of educational policy in the U.S. and internationally. He has used large data sets to examine the effects of increased instructional time, school funding, accountability policies, and school competition policies; the benefits of student led classroom discussions; the effects of early childhood education; trends and sources of racial/ethnic and income inequalities in education; inequalities in gifted identification practices; and studies of which pedagogies best help advanced learners. Before joining NWEA, Dr. Long has worked as an assistant professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, Director of Quantitative Research at Research for Action, Research Director at Connecticut Voices for Children, and as a Research Scientist at the National Center for Research on Gifted Education. He has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.