Conor P. Williams

Conor P. Williams is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, and an expert on urban education reform, English learner students, children of immigrants, early education programs, and school choice systems. He is also a founding partner with the Children’s Equity Project. Williams was previously a senior researcher in New America’s Education Policy Program, a senior researcher in its Early Education Initiative, and the founding director of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. He has taught postsecondary courses at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and American University. Williams is a regular columnist at the 74 Million. His work has also been published by the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, TIME, The New Republic, Slate, Dissent, The Daily Beast, Vox, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere. Williams holds a PhD and MA in government from Georgetown University, an MS in teaching from Pace University, and a BA in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. Before beginning his doctoral research, he taught first grade in Brooklyn, New York. Williams attended public schools for his K–12 education, and has three children enrolled in public Title I schools in Washington, D.C.

Posts By Conor P. Williams

School Funding

Progressives Talk Equity, But Where’s the Plan for Real School Change?

Whatever else the 2024 election results indicated, they did not end the United States’ core political predicament. It’s not asymmetrical polarization or gridlock (etc.), though those are certainly...

Bye Bye Birdie: What's Next for Ed-Twitter?

I couldn’t make heads or tails of Twitter when I started an account. Users were birds? What was an RT? And then that flock helped me win a punditry competition. I picked up a bunch of new followers,...

Our Failing Democracy Reflects Our Ability to Deliver on Opportunity

In public conversation, at least, Americans love meritocracy, the notion that the consequences people face are largely a matter of their choices. It’s the central element of the mythology of the...

California

Urban White Families Show New Energy for Racial Justice, but Do They Want It in Their Schools?

The day after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 ½ years in prison for killing George Floyd, writer Melinda D. Anderson tweeted that it “must’ve been a huge relief...

Diversity

How ‘Social Distancing’ Is Changing the Way We View Schools

Paradoxically enough, as Washington, D.C., has slid from mass school closures into social distancing and working from home toward increasingly likely shelter-in-place, my neighborhood is erupting...

Achievement Gap

How English Learners Got Left Behind in the Drive Towards Equity

Many years ago, back in 2014, when the world was young and American politics had not yet gone wholly off the rails, I launched a policy research team to focus on young English learners (ELs). “Around...