Rate My Professor Bob Bifulco

Robert Bifulco is a professor in the Public Administration and International Affairs Department at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Budget and Administration. He is a senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research and the Program on Educational Equity and Policy. Bifulco earned a Ph.D. in Public Administration and an M.P.A. from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School in 2001 and 1994, respectively, an M.A. in Philosophy from Rice University in 1993, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Bucknell University in 1989. Prior to returning to Syracuse, he held faculty positions at the University of Connecticut, including associate and assistant professor roles in the Department of Public Policy and the Department of Political Science from 2001 to 2008, and received the Distinguished Professor Award from graduate students there in 2008.

His research focuses on the evaluation of educational policies and programs, with interests in school segregation, school policies and student outcomes, the measurement of school performance, educational resource disparities, and peer effects. Bifulco has published extensively on topics including charter schools, magnet schools, whole-school reform, school accountability programs, and place-based college scholarship programs such as Say Yes to Education, with articles appearing in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Education Finance and Policy, and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. He has conducted analyses of school finance issues for state commissions and litigation. Bifulco teaches courses on public budgeting, quantitative analysis, economics for public decisions, research methods, and program evaluation. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2018 and has received multiple Outstanding Reviewer Awards from the American Educational Research Association for Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.