Chrys Dougherty, Senior Research Scientist

National Center for Educational Achievement

Chrys Dougherty is a Senior Research Scientist at ACT, Inc. and the National Center for Educational Achievement (NCEA), a subsidiary of ACT that specializes in research and training on effective schools and school improvement.  He has written extensively on college readiness, the value of longitudinal student data, and the Ten Essential Elements of statewide student information systems.  He oversees procedures for selecting consistently higher performing schools as well as most of the Center’s research projects using longitudinal student data.  After teaching science in an elementary school in Oakland, California, Dr. Dougherty received his Master of Public Affairs degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs in 1985 and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1992.  From 1992 to 1998, he taught statistics, economics, econometrics, and education policy courses at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin, Texas, and authored Asking the Right Questions about Schools: a Parents’ Guide.  Dougherty joined Just for the Kids (later NCEA) in 1997 and became a primary designer of NCEA’s innovative Just for the Kids School Reports.