Alum Named to White House Council of Economic Advisers

Matthew Kraft, Ed.D.’13, has been a leading researcher in the field of education economics for more than a decade. But now, he’ll get to have a hand in actually steering economic policy.

In July, Kraft, who is an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University, was appointed as a senior economist to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.  

“I felt really honored to serve the president in this capacity and excited to do my part to strengthen our nation’s education systems, economy, and the environment,” Kraft says. “And if I’m being honest, I was also a little nervous about this new adventure outside of academia, but I love to learn and knew it would be an incredible opportunity to experience the federal policymaking process firsthand.”  

Along with about a dozen other senior economists, Kraft will provide the president with objective economic advice on both domestic and international economic policy. This includes preparing the annual Economic Report of the President which is delivered to Congress. 

Kraft’s research primarily focuses on ways to improve education in K-12 public schools. He has published more than 40 academic articles, and his research has received more than $5 million in grant funding from federal agencies and private foundations. But his interest in the topic stems from his own firsthand experience in the classroom. 

As an undergraduate at Stanford University studying international relations, Kraft first learned about the central role education systems play in promoting economic development and social mobility. But it was his experience volunteering as a tutor “that sparked my love for teaching,” he says. 

After graduating, Kraft taught ninth-grade humanities at Berkely High School in California. “My time in the classroom was deeply rewarding, but it also exposed me to the substantial challenges teachers face within the K–12 public education system,” he says. “I decided to study the economics of education and education policy analysis to examine how we can design policies that support teachers and their students to thrive.” 

Joining the Council of Economic Advisers isn’t the first time Kraft will put his research expertise to civic use, either. This past spring, Kraft ran for and won a seat on the school committee in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he lives, and where his children go to school.  

Kraft says he was inspired to run to be more directly engaged in policymaking at the local level. One area Kraft hopes to support in the district is directly tied to one of his primary research interests: how to improve educator recruitment. 

“The hiring process is fraught with so many challenges,” Kraft says. “It is really difficult to find out about job opportunities as a new teacher. Hiring too often takes place just weeks or days before the school year starts leaving novices with little time to prepare. On the school side, finding and selecting the best job candidates is extremely difficult given that paper credentials tell you very little about a teacher’s likely effectiveness in the classroom. Once a teacher is hired, their success depends critically on the support they receive from their peers and the school environment in which they work.”

Kraft has worked closely with his long-time collaborator — and fellow Ed School alum — John Papay to show how critical it is to start the hiring process early and provide both teachers and schools with good information to make the best match possible.  

Whether as a researcher, a school committee member, or a senior economic adviser, Kraft says his career has largely been shaped by the lessons he learned while at the Ed School.

“The lessons I learned and relationships I built at HGSE are a core part of who I am as a scholar and a person,” he says. “I gained a deep appreciation for interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research at HGSE. The world is more complex than any one theory or method can capture. I also benefitted from the incredible mentorship of my advisers. I try to pay forward their generosity of spirit in everything I do.”