Two Michigan State University Spartans earned Dissertation Fellowships from the National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation. The annual fellowships are bestowed to a selected group of doctoral students for furthering educational research through a rigorous process. Around 60 to 70 awardees are selected each year nationwide and are given a $27,500 stipend.
Patrick Massey is an applied microeconomist and Ph.D. candidate in economics at MSU. His research applies econometric and discrete choice methods to study teacher labor markets, education policy and the distribution of educational opportunity.
Massey’s dissertation project examines “Incentives, Credentials and the Limits of Teacher Sorting: Evidence from Performance Pay in Texas.” He will study the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment, a statewide performance-based compensation program, launched in 2019 and designed to award effective teachers and incentivize them to work on high-need school campuses. Massey’s work was inspired by his family members who teach in Texas public schools and because Texas is his home state.
Rheem’s project examines “Migrants’ Moving Literacies in a Seasonal Harvest School.” She will focus on a school in Maine, which receives an influx of seasonal workers in August to help with the fruit harvest. The "Seasonal Harvest School educates rakers’ children, who come from Indigenous First Nations and Tribes, Mexico, Puerto Rico, southeastern U.S. states and from other towns in Maine,” Rheem’s research abstract explains. Rheem will analyze how these migrating youth “learn about language, literacy and identity as they move from place to place” and how “migrating youth’s literacy practices shape(and influence) how they are shaped by seasonal migration.”