Beyond Standards

Morgan Polikoff, PhD, is an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education. He received his doctorate in education policy from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 and his bachelor’s in mathematics with a minor in secondary education in 2006. He has published more than forty peer-reviewed journal articles, with his research primarily focusing on the design, implementation, and effects of standards, curriculum, assessment, and accountability policies in American education. To investigate these issues, he has also been principal investigator or co–principal investigator on grants totaling more than $15 million. In 2017, for his work on these topics, he received the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). A committed public scholar, he also received the AERA Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award in 2020. He has been an associate editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a coeditor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. He has also been awarded by both USC Rossier and USC for his mentoring of PhD students. A three-time trivia game show champion, Morgan lives in Los Angeles with his husband, Joel Hart, and their cattle dog mutt, Indy.