Nationally Recognized Education Scholar and Economist Tim Sass Retiring

ATLANTA — Tim Sass, a nationally recognized education scholar and economist, is retiring at the end of the year — after more than 40 years of service — and is becoming a professor emeritus.

Sass, who joined Georgia State University’s Department of Economics in 2011, has held the W.J. Usery Chair of the American Workplace, is the founder and faculty director of the Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Education (MAPLE) in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies’ Georgia Policy Labs (GPL) and has been recognized as one of the nation’s most influential education scholars on multiple occasions.

Through MAPLE, launched in 2017, Sass partnered with five school districts in the metro-Atlanta area to promote evidence-based decision-making that improved outcomes for students. Most notably, MAPLE worked alongside the districts at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide rapid-response research about the pandemic’s impact on students — including informing subsequent interventions — and has continued this work in the pandemic’s wake to evaluate the efficacy of recovery strategies designed to accelerate learning.

The pandemic-related work from MAPLE resulted in a $1.85 million grant* from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences that supported this work and allowed MAPLE to continue its unparalleled commitment to its partners during a historic global health emergency.

“Dr. Sass’ visionary leadership of MAPLE has shaped our team at the Georgia Policy Labs, our partners, and students and school communities in countless ways. He has instilled core values of research integrity, true partnership and being solutions-focused that show up in our work to produce actionable insights every day,” said Katherine Dunn, senior director of GPL. “As we continue the work to ensure policies in Georgia lift up students and families, we carry Dr. Sass’ lessons with us and are grateful for the legacy he leaves.”

As a professor in the Department of Economics, Sass elevated the department’s work in the economics of education by recruiting other top scholars to join the department, teaching a very popular graduate course on education policy, and supervising many master’s papers and dissertation committees.

“Tim has made incredible contributions to the Department of Economics during his tenure,” said Jim Marton, chair of the department. “His arrival as a Second Century Initiative faculty hire contributing to the advancement of evidence-based policy launched us to national prominence in the field of education economics. Graduate students from across the university sought out his education economics course, and his students have gone on to shape the education sector as both researchers and administrators. As the Usery Chair, Tim brought top scholars to GSU every year via the Usery Lecture Series and was always very generous in support of other faculty and our students.”

Over his professional career, which started at the University of New Mexico and included stops at San Jose State and Florida State, Sass has won numerous awards, received over $9.5 million in external grant funding and published over 45 peer-reviewed articles. His work has been presented at numerous conferences and has been cited over 11,800 times. He has taught several courses and chaired many dissertation committees. He leaves a monumental legacy at Georgia State.

“It has been an honor to serve on the faculty of Georgia State University for the last 13 years. I am proud of the Georgia Policy Labs that I helped build and the work GPL have done to promote the use of data and evidence to improve decision-making and enhance outcomes for students in Georgia,” Sass said. “I am also grateful for the wonderful students and faculty colleagues I have had the pleasure to work with at Georgia State.”

*Note: This project is fully supported by an award (R305A230400) totaling $1,849,956.00 through the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.