Doctoral student James Sadler has been named a 2020 David L. Clark Scholar by the University Council for Educational Administration.
As a Clark Scholar, Sadler, a fourth-year student in the Policy, Leadership and School Improvement strand of the Ph.D. program, will participate in the David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar in Educational Administration & Policy. The event, which is scheduled at the beginning of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco in April, brings emerging educational administration and policy scholars and researchers together for presentations, discussion, and professional growth.
Sadler earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in secondary education from the University of Pennsylvania, completing his master’s degree while working as a Teach for America teacher. He also worked for three years as a high school physics and mathematics teacher.
Sadler’s research interests include school discipline policies, with a focus on implementing restorative practices; gender pay gaps in teacher labor markets; educator response to accountability pressures; early childhood education; the politics of education; and, reforms that improve education quality and opportunity for historically underrepresented students.
Sadler’s dissertation research analyzes the effects of implementing restorative justice practices in a no-excuses charter school network.
Sadler also has been active in campus student movement to remove UNC-Chapel Hill’s “Silent Sam” statue.
Other PLS students or alumni who have been named Clark Scholars are Jerry Wilson, Becca Merrill, Michael Little, Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, and John Wachen.