Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, a noted education policy researcher, has joined the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities as associate director, effective Aug. 1.  Affiliated with the Graduate School of Education, the Gardner Center develops leadership, conducts research, and affects change to improve the lives of youth.

Velasco’s work focuses on the study and promotion of change in public schools, the implications of education reform for disadvantaged students, education law and policy, and the effect of immigration on schools and communities.

“Jorge brings a significant depth of expertise in the field of education policy to the Gardner Center,” said Amy Gerstein, the center’s executive director.  “He will not only make a substantial contribution to our youth development research initiatives, Jorge is also known and respected in Sacramento and will assist the Gardner Center in making our research accessible to a broader audience of state-level policy makers.”

Velasco has deep roots at Stanford, dating back to 1991 when he arrived as a doctoral student in the political science department. The following year, he was admitted concurrently to the GSE’s Master’s Program in Administration and Policy Analysis. Velasco completed his PhD in 1999 and then moved to Washington, D.C., to work at the Urban Institute’s Education Policy Center, which was founded by his dissertation advisor and former GSE professor Jane Hannaway.  

Returning to California, Velasco joined the Hewlett Foundation’s education program, headed at the time by former GSE Dean Mike Smith. Since then, he worked with GSE professors Susanna Loeb, to launch the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice, and Linda Darling-Hammond, on a number of education programs for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.  Most recently, he worked with Gardner Center founding director Milbrey McLaughlin as researcher and co-author on a number of reports for the Gardner Center’s California Alternative Education Project. 

“The common thread in all of these projects has been the passion that each of these GSE faculty members bring to educational equity and excellence in the public sphere,” said Velasco.  “My work sits best within a school of education, and so the GSE is a natural home for me.  But I can't deny that I also have a law degree from Berkeley and so remain connected to both wonderful institutions.”

Velasco earned his JD from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, and his immediate past appointment was as the associate director and director of education initiatives at the Berkeley Law School’s Earl Warren Institute. At the Warren Institute, Velasco led multi-disciplinary, policy-relevant research initiatives with a focus on the civil rights and social implications of reform in education, in California and nationally.

Velasco said that he’s pleased about his new position at the Gardner Center. “More than any other place I have worked, the Gardner Center is a perfect match, not just for the substance of my career interests, but because of the field-orientation that characterizes the work here,” he said.  “It is important also that each of our staff is so obviously committed to keeping equity at the heart of the drive to improve both our schools and our democracy, by extension.”