Jon Fullerton

Dr. Jon Fullerton is a research professor and executive director of the USC Education Policy Hub.  He has extensive experience working with education policy makers and executives in using data to guide system improvement and the effective use of financial resources.  Before coming to USC, Fullerton was executive director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.  While at CEPR, Dr. Fullerton founded the Strategic Data Project.  SDP places and trains analytic data fellows across the PK12 and Higher Education sectors to use data and evidence to guide strategy and decision making to transform student outcomes.  Thus far, SDP has placed or trained over 500 fellows across at over 240 partner agencies and non-profits.  

Fullerton has also served as the Board of Education’s Director of Budget and Financial Policy for the Los Angeles Unified School District. In this capacity, he provided independent evaluations of District reforms and helped to ensure that the District’s budget was aligned with Board priorities. From 2002 to 2005 he was Vice-President of Strategy, Evaluation, Research, and Policy at the Urban Education Partnership in Los Angeles, where he worked with policy makers to ensure that they focused on high impact educational strategies. Prior to this, he worked at McKinsey & Company as a strategy consultant. Dr. Fullerton has a PhD in government and AB in religion and social studies, both from Harvard. 

• Fullerton, J. (2021).  “Bridging the Gaps in Education Data.”  American Enterprise Institute.
• Fullerton, J. (2016).  “But Does It Work: Evaluating the Fruits of Entrepreneurship.”  In Education Entrepreneurship Today.   Edited by Frederick Hess and Sarah DuPre.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
• Page, L., Fullerton, J., Bacher-Hicks, A., Owens, A., Cohodes, S., West, M., and Glover, S.  (2013). “The Strategic Data Project’s Strategic Performance Indicators.”  Education Finance and Policy, 8 (3): 435-456.
• Fullerton, J.  (2013). “Harnessing Data and Analytics 2.0.” In Rethinking School Systems.  Edited by Frederick Hess and Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj.   Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Roza, M and Fullerton, J. (2013). “Funding Phantom Students.”  Education Next, 13(3), 8-16.
• Papay, J., West, M., Fullerton, J., Kane, T. (2012). “Does Practice-Based Teacher Preparation Increase Student Achievement? EarlyEvidence from the Boston Teacher Residency.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
• Fullerton, J. (2011). “The Data Challenge.”  In Customized Schooling.  Edited by Frederick Hess.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
• Angrist, J., Cohodes, S., Dynarski, S., Fullerton, J., Kane, T., Pathak, P, Walters, C.R. (2011). Student Achievement in Massachusetts Charter Schools.  Paper commissioned by Massachusetts Department of Education.
• Abdulkadiroglu, A., Angrist, J., Cohodes, S., Dynarski, S., Fullerton, J., Kane, T., & Pathak, P. (2009).  Informing the Debate: Comparing Boston’s Charter, Pilot, and Traditional Schools. Paper commissioned by The Boston Foundation.
• Hess, F.M. & Fullerton, J.  (2008). “Balanced Scorecards and Management Data.”  In A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for thePost-NCLB Era.  Edited by Kanstoroom, M., & Osberg, E.C.  Washington, D.C.: Fordham Institute Press.
• Cantrell, S., Fullerton, J., Kane, T.J., & Staiger, D.O. (2008).  “National Board Certification and Teacher Effectiveness:  Evidence from aRandom Assignment Experiment.” NBER Working Papers, #14608.
• Fullerton, J. (2004).  Mounting Debt.  Education Next, 4(1), 10-19.