When Mathew Gardner Kelly enrolled in the GSE in 2012 as a doctoral student, he had no idea that his research into the history of education could have such a profound impact on the present.

A former New York City math and special education teacher at an under-resourced public school, he found his niche at the GSE researching how state governments have created school funding systems over time. Fast forward to his first assistant professor position at Pennsylvania State University, and he suddenly found his research becoming part of a major civil rights case challenging the legality of the state’s school funding formula.

“Taking what I had studied at the GSE, I saw that in Pennsylvania there was a formula that wasn’t being used, not enough money was going into it, and it was systematically disadvantaging students of color and students from low-income families in Pennsylvania,” said Kelly, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Washington and author of the book Dividing the Public: School Finance and the Creation of Structural Inequity.

As part of the case, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education et al., Kelly wrote several expert and rebuttal reports, and testified as one of the first and last witnesses of the trial. The court ended up siding with the petitioners and found the state’s funding system unconstitutional.

Kelly is one of four educators being honored at the GSE’s Alumni Excellence in Education Awards this year, for his impact on students and the field of education.

“As a professor and researcher,” he said, “I’m learning to not just prioritize things like publishing a book with an academic press, but to place value in the work I do engaging with public policy members.”