Government Department

Government Department

State Education Governance Study (SEGS)

Since January 2007, the State Education Governance Study (SEGS) has examined how state institutions and money influence state education policy and student success.  Several College undergraduates, and a master's student in the Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy, have contributed to the effort.

The research team, past and present, is as follows: Erica Parker (W&M 2007, now with Office of Naval Intelligence), Kathryn "K.C." Tydgat (W&M 2007, now a master's student in public administration at the University of North Carolina, and still a SEGS researcher), Amanda Guthrie (current senior), Nick Bahnsen (current senior), and Chad Aldeman (master's student in TJPPP).

Students spent the spring and summer helping Professor Paul Manna with data collection and analysis.  That included two research trips to the National Association of State Boards of Education in Alexandria, Virginia (Manna and Tydgat), and another trip to the Education Commission of the States in Denver, Colorado where (Manna, Tydgat, and Guthrie).

The work has received financial support from the Spencer Foundation (http://www.spencer.org/), and the Information Technology Department's Technology Integration Program (http://tip.wm.edu/?p=135), for which Erica Parker was a Technology Fellow during Spring 2007.

More information on the project is here: http://pmanna.people.wm.edu/edgov/edgov.html.