Texas Schools Project

The Executive Committee oversees the activities of the Texas Schools Project.

Executive Committee Members

Eric A. Hanushek
Daniel G. Arce
Jennifer S. Holmes
Joseph Pancrazio
Steven G. Rivkin

Eric Hanushek

Eric A. Hanushek
Committee Chairman; Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow, Stanford University

Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow and a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.

A leader in the development of economic analysis of educational issues, his research spans the impact of teacher quality, high-stakes accountability, and class-size reduction on achievement. He pioneered measuring teacher quality on the basis of student achievement, the basis for research into the value-added of teachers and schools. Dr. Hanushek’s work on school efficiency is central to debates about school finance adequacy and equity, while analyses of the economic impact of school outcomes motivate both national and international educational policy design.

Daniel G. Arce

Daniel G. Arce
Professor and Program Head of Economics, The University of Texas at Dallas

Daniel G. Arce M. is Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics at UTD. He has received the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and is currently the Head of the Economics Program. Professor Arce specializes in game theory, business ethics, collective action, conflict, corporate governance, global public goods, leadership and terrorism. He has published over sixty articles in these areas. He is a Co-Editor of The Southern Economic Journal and a former editor of Defence and Peace Economics, where he is now a member of the editorial board. He also serves on the editorial review team for the teaching business ethics section of the Journal of Business Ethics.

Jennifer S. Holmes

Jennifer S. Holmes
Dean, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, and Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and Political Economy, The University of Texas at Dallas

Jennifer S. Holmes’ major areas of research are political violence, terrorism, and political development with an emphasis on Latin America, especially Colombia and Peru. In addition to numerous journal articles, I am the author or editor of seven books, including Guns, Drugs and Development in Colombia (University of Texas Press, 2008), Terrorism and Democratic Stability Revisited (Manchester University Press, 2008), Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? (Routledge, 2008, 2015), and Immigration Judges and U.S. Asylum Policy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). My ongoing research is focused on four areas: the landscape ecology of conflict and post-conflict, the protection of critical infrastructures, urban quality of life, and the creation of real time event data on political and social events in Latin America.

Joseph Pancrazio

Joseph Pancrazio
Vice President for Research and Innovation, The University of Texas at Dallas

Joseph Pancrazio is the Vice President of Research and Innovation. Under his leadership, the Office of Research and Innovation fosters the advancement of cutting-edge research discoveries and technology at the University of Texas at Dallas. His departmental resources provide faculty and staff with a variety of specialized information and training to help efficiently navigate funding opportunities, proposal development, post-award fiscal and effort advising, as well as guidance in facilitating commercial partnerships.

Prior to joing UT Dallas in 2015, Pancrazio was the founding Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Mason from 2011 to 2015. And, before that, he worked with a number of renound organizations and universities including the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the US Naval Research Laboratory and Georgetown University.

Steven Rivkin

Steven Rivkin
Professor and Head of the Economics Department, University of Illinois at Chicago

Steven G. Rivkin is Professor of Economics and Head of the Economics Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also a Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a part of the CALDER Texas team.

Dr. Rivkin’s main areas of interest are the economics and sociology of education, where he has written on a wide range of issues including teacher quality and labor markets, school desegregation, class size, special education, charter schools, student mobility, and school spending. He has authored and co-authored numerous publications on factors related to student outcomes.