Angus McLeod IV

I grew up in a small Texas town and moved school districts repeatedly.  Each time I struggled academically.  The shifts were disorienting but since then, I have dedicated my education, work, and research to explaining the structural inequalities that produce such radically different learning environments just a few miles apart.

In college I joined and eventually helped run a mentoring program that partnered with a school serving socioeconomically disadvantaged students in Austin.  The program's accompanying course focused on education reform issues and it was there that I came to see the mutually reinforcing link between property wealth, per-student spending, and school quality.  My undergraduate thesis explored northern philanthropy around African American schooling in the South at the turn of the twentieth century.

After college I joined Teach For America and taught high school social studies in South Texas.  After moving back to Austin I taught AP Macro and Microeconomics and worked with other teachers, students, and parents to change the stressful culture of the high-performing school at which I worked.  I care deeply about the craft of teaching and, upon arriving at Penn, gained a teaching certificate from Penn's Center for Teaching and Learning.  In 2019 I participated in the National Humanities Center's Graduate Student Summer Residency program entitled "Objects and Places in an Inquiry-Based Classroom."

My doctoral studies and dissertation are the product of my drive to answer how structural inequalities are built into the public school system.  I want my research on the history of school funding to highlight the developmental trajectory that brought us to the present, and, more importantly, how to put us on a different path: one that results in greater equity and excellent schooling for all.