Education Policy Speaker Series

A Conversation with Dr. Sarah Winchell Lenhoff; Director, Detroit Education Research Partnership

Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Ph.D., is the Leonard Kaplan Endowed Professor and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Wayne State University. She earned a B.A. in English and women’s studies at the University of Georgia, a Master’s in teaching at Pace University, and a Ph.D. in educational policy at Michigan State University. She was previously the director of research and policy at the Education Trust-Midwest. Her research examines how education policy shapes access to educational opportunity in urban public schools. Her current projects examine implications for racial equity in school choice policy implementation; the relationship between school and social policy and student attendance; and how continuous improvement can inform systems change.

She is the director of the Detroit Education Research Partnership, a research-practice partnership with the Detroit Public Schools Community District and a coalition of Detroit community-based organizations focused on understanding and addressing problems related to chronic absenteeism, enrollment, discipline, and early literacy. Her most recent collaborative work on Detroit education policy issues can be found at https://education.wayne.edu/detroit-education-research-partnership.