The EASE Project is committed to exploring, investigating, exposing, and solving issues of equity in public schools across California. During its time at the University of California, Los Angeles, The EASE Project has built and sustained partnerships with schools across the state of California, making sure to provide the scholarly, practical, and professional support that UCLA has to offer. We work to bring research to practice, and bridge the gaps between academia and communities. The EASE Project is a collection of researchers who partner with practitioners, policy makers, and families to envision new possibilities for the structure and purpose of schools, all with the goal of ensuring higher education and college access for students.
Robert Cooper, Ph.D, Principal Investigator
Meet the Principal Investigator
Dr. Robert Cooper
Robert Cooper is Associate Professor of Education in the Urban Schooling Division at UCLA and serves as co-faculty Director of the UCLA Principal Leadership Institute and serves as the Director of the UCLA Equity and Access Studies in Education (EASE) Project.
The overarching focus of Dr. Cooper’s research over the past two decades has been on issues of educational access, equity, and segregation in America’s public schooling system. His research and scholarship are conceptually and analytically linked to public policy, in that he seeks to identify effective policies and practices that lead to both excellence and equity in urban schools serving large numbers of poor and minority youth. Employing a multidisciplinary, mixed methods approach, he explores the ways in which sociological theory informs educational practice to create the conditions for high quality teaching and learning, while also promoting positive race and ethnic relations in American society.
Dr. Cooper is the recipient of the 2018 California Educational Research Association’s Educational Leadership Award - University Professional of the Year, the 2017 American Educational Research Association’s Social Justice SIG Leadership for Social Justice Teaching Award in Education Administration, the 2016 American Educational Research Association’s Exemplary Contribution to Practice Engaged Research Award and the 2014 UCLA GSEIS Teacher of the Year Award. Professor Cooper obtained his Ph.D. from UCLA, Master’s of Public Policy from Brandies University and undergraduate degree in government from Pomona College.
Dr. Cooper runs for Congress of the 25th District
American Educational Research Association Award
Meet the EASE Professional Partners
Odie J. Douglas, Ed.D.,Interim Assistant Superintendent, Livermore School District
Lynn Haines Dodd
Don Mitchell
Jonathon Davis, PhD.