Martin Carnoy

Martin Carnoy is the Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University Graduate School of Education and is Co-Director of the GSE’s Lemann Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Brazilian Education. Prior to coming to Stanford, he was a Research Associate in Economics, Foreign Policy Division, at the Brookings Institution. He has also been a consultant to the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNESCO, IEA, OECD, UNICEF, International Labour Office.

Dr. Carnoy is a labor economist with a special interest in the relation between the economy and the educational system. To this end, he studies this relationship in the US and many other countries. He is particularly interested in how labor markets treat race, ethnicity, and gender (Faded Dreams; Whitewashing Race). Further, he studies educational systems worldwide using comparative analysis to understand how education influences productivity and economic growth, and, in turn, how and why educational systems change over time, and why some countries’ educational systems are marked by better student performance than others'. He has researched extensively the impact of vouchers and charter schools on student outcomes, as well as larger issues of the impact of economic inequality on educational systems.

In recent years, Dr. Carnoy has carried out major projects comparing educational quality in Latin America (Cuba’s Academic Advantage), Southern and Eastern Africa (The Low Achievement Trap), and among U.S. states (Bringing It Back Home), in the Russian Federation ((Не)обычные Школы), and higher education in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China (University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy). Currently, he is conducting impact evaluations of various educational reforms in Brazil and using big data to research educational inequality among Brazilian municipalities and schools.

Dr. Carnoy received his BA in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology, MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.