Raymond McGhee

Dr. Raymond McGhee, a senior research scientist in SRI’s Center for Education Policy, conducts research and program evaluations on efforts to improve students’ transition from secondary school to postsecondary school and to the workforce. McGhee has worked on a wide variety of projects examining the role of technology in education, informal learning in out-of-school settings, and high school reform, and he has worked with states, districts, community-based organizations, and schools to plan and implement formative and summative evaluations. He has also been involved in studying recruitment, retention, and induction programs designed to prepare postsecondary students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). 

McGhee is currently a co-principal investigator on three National Science Foundation grants examining efforts to enhance STEM education and improve secondary and postsecondary students’ transition to the workforce. He is the evaluator of an NSF grant examining academic and social supports in learning community activities designed to increase student enrollment and retention in STEM majors in four higher education institutions in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He is also conducting targeted research on best practices in partnerships supporting workforce development between community colleges and the information technology, biotechnology, engineering, and renewable energy industries. McGhee is also the co-principal investigator in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Washington and George Washington University on a randomized experiment examining the impact of advanced placement science courses on students leaving high school and moving into postsecondary studies.

From 2002 to 2008, McGhee co-directed the evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Study for the U.S. Department of Education. That was an examination of program quality and academic support services in a nationally representative sample of community-based organizations and schools. From 2009 to 2011, McGhee managed a program evaluation for the National Science Foundation examining institutional and curricular change in postsecondary institutions that had received grants to revitalize undergraduate computing education in the United States.

McGhee received his doctorate in education from the University of California, Los Angeles.