Robert Cotto, Jr. graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in sociology and he has a Master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and from Trinity College in American Studies. Before coming to Trinity, Robert was a K-12 educational researcher and teacher.

He believes that teaching and learning should be connected to each student’s interests, the communities related to our study, and the scholars that have come before us. He has worked with students at various levels in the Hartford area to develop their academic interests, abilities, and skills.

His academic work focuses on K-12 education policy. His past and present research focuses on educational reform movements in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that offer educational improvement, yet often reinforce inequality or are subverted by existing social policy. In particular, he studies the history and current impact of educational testing, school choice, and teacher-led innovation, and management policies, particularly with respect to marginalized and racialized groups.

You can follow him on twitter at: @robertcottojr

• Choice Watch: Access and Diversity in Connecticut’s School Choice Programs. New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, April 2014.
• The Governor’s Proposed Fiscal Year 2014-15 Budget: The Impact on Children . (with staff at CT Voices for Children) New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, February 2013.
• Providing Educational Opportunity for Every Child . New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, September 2012.
• Making Sense of the Vertical Scales: An Alternative View of the Connecticut Mastery Test Results . New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, July 2012. 
• Understanding Connecticut’s Application for a Waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act . New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, April 2012.
• The Limits of Data on Free and Reduced Price Meal Eligibility in Connecticut . New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, March 2012.
• The Governor’s Proposed Fiscal Year 2013 Budget: The Impact on Children . (with staff at CT Voices for Children) New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, February 2012.
• Addition through Subtraction: Are rising test scores in Connecticut related to the exclusion of students with Disabilities? New Haven, CT: Connecticut Voices for Children, January 2012.
• “Hartford’s Claim of School Success Flawed.” Hartford Courant, March 1, 2011.
• “The Coqui’s Call.” In Mi Voz, Mi Vida: Latino College Students Tell Their Stories, edited by Andrew Garrod, Christina Gómez, and Robert Kilkenny, 148-166. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007.

• Awarded grant for “Choice Watch” research project at Connecticut Voices for Children to analyze school choice data in Connecticut and prepare a series of reports, from an anonymous donor, August 2012-January 2014.
• National Education Association (NEA), Washington, D.C.: Selected for a one-week long Magna Carta and Human Rights curriculum-writing workshop in Grantham and London, UK, April 2008.
• iEARN – USA, NY, NY and U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.: Selected for three-week long educational exchange program in Cairo, Egypt with the iEARN – USA (International Education and Resource Network). Supervised four students studying in Egypt at Modern Education Schools in New Cairo, Egypt. Observed education practices of Egyptian public and private schools, March-April 2005.
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color, 2002-2007.
• Inter-Ethnic Friendship & Moral Development Project, Hanover, NH: Selected as one of four research assistants for two projects under the direction of Professor Andrew Garrod in Bosnia and Herzegovina to interview children and adolescents regarding their inter-ethnic friendships and moral development, December 2002.