Aaron M. Pallas is Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  He has devoted the bulk of his career to the study of educational stratification, especially the relationship between school organization and educational stratification and the linkages among schooling, learning, and the human life course. His most recent projects are explicitly designed to inform policy makers and other stakeholders about conditions in New York City public schools. Recent publications include “Windows of Possibility: Perspectives on the Construction of Educational Researchers” (SAGE, 2006) and “A Subjective Approach to Schooling and the Transition to Adulthood” (Elsevier/JAI, 2006).