David Blazar

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David Blazar is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland College Park in the Education Policy program, as well as the faculty director of the Maryland Equity Project and an affiliate faculty member in the School of Public Policy and the department of Economics. With training in the economics of education, Blazar's research examines the efficient, effective, and equitable allocation of educational resources, focusing in particular on resources related to teachers. His research portfolio examines: (1) characteristics of effective teachers (e.g., training, demographics) and effective teaching (e.g., classroom practice) that improve student outcomes; (2) whether and how varied instructional resources (e.g., professional development, curricula, evaluation) improve teacher practice and student outcomes; and (3) labor market policies and practices that successfully recruit and retain teachers in the profession. His research has been published in Nature Communications, Educational Researcher, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Review of Educational Research, among other publications. Blazar received the Excellence in Scholarship (Pre-Tenure) award from the University of Maryland College of Education, and the Jean Flanigan Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Association for Education Finance and Policy. Education Week named him as one of the most influential education policy scholars in the U.S. He received his doctorate and master's degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and his bachelor's degree in history and literature from Harvard College. Prior to graduate school, he taught high-school English Language Arts in New York City.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate Professor, University of Maryland

Education

  • 2016 
    Harvard University, Education Policy

Publications

  • 2026
    Localized teacher recruitment through “grow-your-own”: Impacts of the high school Teacher Academy of Maryland program, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
  • 2026
    Disparate pathways: Understanding racial disparities in teaching, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
  • 2026
    Professional staff diversity and student outcomes: Extending our understanding of race/ethnicity-matching effects in education, Educational Researcher
  • 2026
    Disparities in childhood human capital investments in the United States, Nature Communications
  • 2025
    Differential responses to teacher evaluation incentives: Expectancy, race, experience, and task, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
  • 2025
    Pathways into the CTE teaching profession: A descriptive analysis of degrees, licenses, and race in Maryland, AERA Open
  • 2024
    Effective school district policies and practices: Synthesizing theoretical frameworks and empirical findings across disciplines, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
  • 2024
    Instructional coaching personnel and program scalability, Education Finance and Policy
  • 2024
    Why Black teachers matter, Educational Researcher
  • 2023
    Challenges and tradeoffs of “good” teaching: The pursuit of multiple educational outcomes, Journal of Teacher Education
  • 2022
    Exclusive versus mixed, general versus CTE: Building a new taxonomy of STEMM high school teachers, Journal of Education Human Resources
  • 2020
    Substituting teacher-collected video for formal classroom observations: An experimental evaluation, Education Finance and Policy
  • 2020
    Teacher coaching to improve instruction at scale: Opportunities and challenges in a policy context, Teachers College Record
  • 2020
    Curriculum reform in the Common Core era: Evaluating elementary math textbooks across six U.S. states, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
  • 2020
    Teaching to support students with diverse academic needs, Educational Researcher
  • 2019
    Balancing rigor, replication, and relevance: A case for multiple-cohort, longitudinal experiments, AERA Open
  • 2018
    Validating teacher effects on students’ attitudes and behaviors: Evidence from random assignment of teachers to students, Education Finance and Policy
  • 2018
    The effect of teacher coaching on instruction and achievement: A meta-analysis of the causal evidence, Review of Educational Research
  • 2018
    Exploring the potential for video-based classroom observations, International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology
  • 2017
    Individualized coaching to improve teacher practice across grades and subjects: New experimental evidence, Educational Policy
  • 2017
    Does test preparation mean low-quality instruction?, Educational Researcher
  • 2017
    Attending to general and mathematics-specific dimensions of teaching: Exploring factors across two observation instruments, Educational Assessment
  • 2017
    Teacher and teaching effects on students’ attitudes and behaviors, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
  • 2017
    Relationship between observations of elementary teacher mathematics instruction and student achievement: Exploring variability across districts, American Journal of Education
  • 2016
    What does it mean to be ranked a “high” or “low” value-added teacher? Observing differences in instructional quality across districts, American Educational Research Journal
  • 2015
    Effective teaching in elementary mathematics: Identifying classroom practices that support student achievement, Economics of Education Review
  • 2015
    Exploring mechanisms of effective teacher coaching: A tale of two cohorts from a randomized experiment, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
  • 2015
    Grade assignments and the teacher pipeline: A low-cost lever to improve student achievement?, Educational Researcher
  • 2015
    Resources for teaching: Examining personal and institutional predictors of high-quality instruction, AERA Open
  • 2012
    Validating arguments for observational instruments: Attending to multiple sources of variation, Educational Assessment

Grants and Contracts

  • 2024
    CALDER recruitment and retention center
    Role:
    Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Institute of Education Sciences
  • 2024
    Transforming education systems: Promoting teacher diversity through culturally responsive pathways, pedagogies, and policymaking
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Spencer Foundation
  • 2023
    Sustaining literacy practices over time: Codifying knowledge through micro-credentialing
    Role:
    Co-Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Institute of Education Sciences
  • 2022
    Adapting STARI to accelerate student reading achievement in middle grades
    Role:
    External Evaluator
    Funding Source:
    Institute of Education Sciences
  • 2021
    Examining recruitment programs and pathways to diversify the teacher workforce
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Institute of Education Sciences
  • 2021
    Education and experience: Do teacher qualifications in career-focused STEM courses make a difference?
    Role:
    Co-Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    National Science Foundation
  • 2019
    Disparities in investments in children and youth in the United States
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Spencer Foundation
  • 2019
    SERP-DCPS partnership to promote early literacy success
    Role:
    Co-Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Institute of Education Sciences
  • 2019
    Long-term effect of teachers on students’ academic and non-academic skill formation: Evidence from longitudinal education and workforce data in Maryland
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    American Educational Research Association
  • 2016
    Validating teacher effects on non-tested outcomes
    Role:
    Principal Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Smith Richardson Foundation

Contact David for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision