Student Profiles

Arun Ramanathan, EPLIP

What did you do before you came to the GSE?

A few years after graduating from college in 1991, I spent a year as a Volunteer in Service to America working with deinstitutionalized adults with disabilities in rural Western Pennsylvania. For me, this was my formative work experience. It led me to a career in the disability field, working to promote the integration of people with disabilities in their schools and communities. Since then, I have worked in a variety of jobs with both adults and children with disabilities including paraprofessional, supported employment specialist, counselor in a non-public school and resource specialist and inclusion teacher in places ranging from rural Vermont to a public school in the center of the San Francisco's Mission District. Before coming to Harvard, I had the opportunity to conduct research and publish articles on a range of topics including inclusive education to special education in for-profit charter schools.

Comments on the coursework?

Nearly every class I took at Harvard was outstanding. It's hard to separate out one or two but ones that are having a direct impact on my work are the ones I took from Tom Hehir - Students with Disabilities in School and Implementing Inclusive Education. Both expanded my understanding of special education from an implementation and policy perspective. Politics, Policy and Practice in Education by Richard Elmore and Leadership in Organizations by Susan Moore-Johnson enhanced my theoretical understanding of educational organizations and policy. Connecting Research, Practice and Policy in Education taught by Catherine Snow and Kathleen McCartney provided me with deep understanding of the intersection between educational research and policy and gave me an opportunity to understand how such research is translated through the political process into policy and eventually practice.

What is your research question?

I am looking at the intersection between general and special education policy. My current research focuses on the lessons that nearly thirty years of IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] can offer for NCLB [No Child Left Behind] in the area of federal government oversight.

What is your career goal?

I am privileged to have two extraordinary mentors, both of whom I acquired through my experience at HGSE. Dr. Tom Hehir, the former director of OSEP [U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs] is recognized for both his scholarship and experience in special education. Dr. Carl Cohn, the Independent Monitor and former longtime superintendent of Long Beach Unified School District, is nationally recognized as an educational innovator who led his district to major gains in student achievement and reductions in the performance gap. My career goal is to learn from their models and move into a position where I can, on a large scale, contribute to the continued inclusion of children with disabilities in public schools and their communities and promote the integration of special and general education in ways that lead to improvements in the quality of education and educational results for students in urban schools.