With more than 30 years of experience as a research scientist and educator, Daniel Long conducts policy research and MAP Growth data analysis for NWEA’s partner states and districts. He developed a passion for educational policy improvement as a sixth-grade bilingual math and science teacher in South Central Los Angeles in the 1990s. Since then, he has conducted quantitative, quasiexperimental, and experimental research of educational policy in the US and internationally. He has used large data sets to examine the effects of increased instructional time, school funding, accountability policies, school competition policies, and early childhood education; the benefits of student-led classroom discussions; trends and sources of racial/ethnic and income inequalities in education; inequalities in gifted identification practices; and pedagogies that best help advanced learners.

Before joining NWEA, Dr. Long was an assistant professor of sociology at Wesleyan University, director of quantitative research at Research for Action, research director at Connecticut Voices for Children, and research scientist at the National Center for Research on Gifted Education. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.