Dr. Nathan Jones is an Associate Professor of Special Education, with tenure. His research focuses on teacher quality, teacher development, and school improvement, with a specific emphasis on the use of measures of teacher effectiveness in evaluation systems. He formerly taught special education in the Mississippi Delta and holds a doctorate in Educational Policy from Michigan State University.

Jones is currently the principal investigator of a $1.6 million IES grant examining whether the Framework for Teaching (FFT) – an observation system used in over 20 states and hundreds of school districts – can be used validly and reliably in the evaluation of special education teachers. He is also Co-PI on a 4-year, $1.6 million IES study (PI: Eric Camburn, UW-Madison) measuring how teachers spend their time, experience their school context, and respond emotionally to their work. He has recently completed a three-year study funded through W.T. Grant examining the training of administrators as raters in a consequential teacher evaluation system. Jones currently serves as an editor of The Elementary School Journal and is on the editorial board at The Journal of Teacher Education.