David Stuit is a co-founder and managing partner at Basis Policy Research, an independent research firm that conducts applied research, data analytics, and program evaluation for PK-20 education organizations across the United States. In his role as managing partner, David is responsible for championing Basis’s vision to improve the life outcomes of American children by providing policymakers with better information that leads to better decisions. In addition to overseeing Basis’s research agenda and strategic partnerships, David is engaged in a number of projects that are focused on building innovative tools to support data-based decision-making by practitioners and policymakers. He is currently working with the Ohio Department of Education and Battelle for Kids to design and validate a rostering tool that helps match students to teachers in order to maximize academic growth. He is also working with a consortium of school districts and non-profit organizations in his hometown of Grand Rapids, MI to design and test an early warning system that provides more accurate diagnostic information on students’ likelihood of high school graduation and college-readiness than those currently in use today. His research has received funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, Kauffman Foundation, and the Brookings Institution.
David has served as an assistant editor of the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis journal and co-editor of the Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk. In addition to academic journals, his research has appeared in various media outlets including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Politico, and Christian Science Monitor. He holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University. He is a former Emerging Education Policy Scholar at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, and member of the American Enterprise Institute’s K–12 working group. While at Vanderbilt, he was a fellow in the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences’ pre-doctoral training program. He began his career as a classroom teacher in Denver, Colorado.
