Christopher B. Swanson is the Director of the EPE Research Center, a division of Editorial Projects in Education, the non-profit organization that publishes Education Week. In this capacity, he oversees a staff of full-time researchers and interns who conduct annual policy surveys, collect data, and perform analyses that appear in the Quality Counts, Technology Counts, and Diplomas Count annual reports of Education Week. Prior to joining EPE in 2005, Dr. Swanson was a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, where his work focused on issues of federal policy and urban high school reform involving small-school restructuring. During the past few years, much of Dr. Swanson's research has examined the implementation of accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. In particular he has extensively investigated the persistent challenges associated with accurately measuring high school graduation rates, a required element of the performance-based accountability mandated under the federal law. He received his B.A. in Liberal Studies and Biology, M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.