
Adam Kho is an Assistant Professor of Education in K-12 Policy and Leadership at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University, specializing in K-12 Education Policy Studies with a minor in Quantitative Methods. Prior to Vanderbilt, Adam received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical-Biological Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor in Biology. He then joined Teach for America, who returned him to his hometown in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught high school mathematics for three years and served subsequently as an Instructional Coach for two years. During this time, he also completed his master’s degree in Secondary Mathematics Education at Georgia State University.
Adam’s stint in a low-performing, Title I turnaround school has strongly shaped his research interests, which include education policies and evaluation of programs serving traditionally disadvantaged students, with a focus on school reform, school turnaround, school choice, and school improvement. His current research includes several studies assessing both intended effects and unintended consequences of Tennessee’s school turnaround portfolio model, a series of studies evaluating the effects of charter schools on student achievement and on the sorting of students both academically and demographically, and an evaluation of school meal programs on student outcomes.