Jake Wertz

I'm a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison interested in understanding how changes in America's schools shape the lives of children today. As a Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences funded by the US Department of Education, I'm learning to conduct large-scale field experiments and analyze quasi-experimental data to evaluate how state- and district-level policies affect outcomes for students.

My research is informed by eight years of experience as an entrepreneurial leader in urban education. In 2015, I founded Valiente College Preparatory, a charter middle school in southeast Los Angeles. Before then, I directed growth initiatives at Urban Prep Academies in Chicago, the nation's first network of all-boys charter public schools.

Department of Sociology

Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences

University of Wisconsin - Madison