His research focuses on the links between education policy, social policy, and educational equity. Much of this work examines how contemporary policies moderate or exacerbate racial/ethnic and social class disparities in cognitive development. Representative work has appeared in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Policy, Sociology of Education, American Educational Research Journal, American Journal of Education, Teachers College Record, Research in Higher Education, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Early Education and Development, as well as in books and edited volumes published by the Brookings Institution, Teachers College Press, and the American Educational Research Association.