Barbara
Condliffe
Senior Associate, K-12 Education

Condliffe is a mixed-methods researcher who leads projects in MDRCs K-12 Education policy area and its Center for Applied Behavioral Science (CABS). Since joining MDRC in 2014, Condliffe’s research has primarily focused on student behavior and social-emotional learning in elementary schools, as well as issues related to students’ and parents’ experiences with school-selection processes. Condliffe is the deputy project director for the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) Impact Evaluation of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior. Condliffe oversaw the recruitment and data-collection efforts for this large-scale, school-level randomized controlled trial, and is leading the implementation analysis and reporting. With CABS, Condliffe’s work focuses on understanding barriers that students and parents face when interacting with school systems and on identifying ways to improve those systems to promote positive outcomes for students. She currently serves as project director for the Improving Engagement in Elementary School Selection project, a collaboration with the New York City Department of Education to design and evaluate interventions to support families through the kindergarten application process. She is also a co-principal investigator for MDRC’s partnership with the City University of New York to study the malleable factors that facilitate or impede community college students’ progress toward bachelor’s degrees.

Before her career in education research, Condliffe taught middle school and high school English in New York City. She received her PhD in sociology from Johns Hopkins University, where she was also an IES Predoctoral Training Fellow, and she holds a BA from Bowdoin College and a MA in teaching from Brooklyn College.