Throughout my time working in education policy, I've consistently seen a gap between research, policy, and practice. Urban is committed to using data and evidence to fill that gap and inform policymaking in a way that empowers practitioners, and I'm grateful to be a part of that work.
Ariella Meltzer is a research analyst in the Work, Education, and Labor Division at the Urban Institute, where she focuses on K–12 education policy. Her research interests include school and district governance, teacher and principal leadership and hiring pipelines, and the intersection of housing and education issues.
Before joining Urban, Meltzer taught second-grade students in DC Public Schools and assisted with research projects at the Tennessee Education Research Alliance during graduate school. She completed a BA in political science at the University of Michigan and earned an MPP at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education.