Director of MIT’s School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative visits Chile

Dr. Pathak
In addition to his keynote address, Dr. Pathak will hold meetings with academics, researchers, NGO’s, think tanks, politicians and Ministry of Education representatives.

Professor Parag Pathak, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics at MIT and director of MIT’s School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative will be the keynote speaker at the Catholic University seminar on “The U.S. Education Reform: Lessons Learned in the Past Decade”, open to the public, to be held on Tuesday, November 18 at the Aula Magna Manuel José Irarrázaval (Alameda 340, Santiago), from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

During his visit, he will address the role of school accountability, standards, and testing in U.S. education reform efforts and also discuss the “achievement gap” often used to refer to the performance gap between minority students, particularly African American and Hispanic students, and their similar disparities between students from low-income and well-off families in a number of areas.

In addition to his keynote address, Dr. Pathak will hold meetings with academics, researchers, NGO’s, think tanks, politicians and Ministry of Education representatives. Dr. Pathak travels to Chile November 17-21 under a grant from the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy to the Catholic University Center of Public Policy. The Center links academia to Chile’s challenges in several issues of public interest through research, seminars, courses and public policy proposals.

Parag Pathak

Dr. Pathak’s research centers on the design and evaluation of student assignment systems.  He has assisted with the design of New York City and Boston school assignment mechanisms currently in use.

The IMF listed him as one of 25 top economists under age 45 in 2014.  In addi­tion to gen­er­at­ing aca­d­e­mic pub­li­ca­tions that study, develop, and test dif­fer­ent student assign­ment sys­tems, Pathak’s research work has directly affected the lives of over one mil­lion pub­lic school students.  In addition to generating academic publications that  study, develop, and test these systems, this work has directly affected the lives of over one million public school students in New York City and Boston.