The work of the initiative is organized around three interrelated foci: instructional excellence, educational policy, and educational leadership. The ultimate goal of all of the work is to improve teaching and learning at the classroom level. Professional development and curriculum development activities designed to improve instruction are directly related to this goal. We also recognize that factors outside of the classroom substantially affect what goes on in the classroom and how children learn. Thus, the initiative examines such education policies as how teachers are credentialed, factors that affect teacher retention, and how different school funding mechanisms affect equity among schools in the expertise and experience of teachers. Likewise, strategies for preparing and supporting entrepreneurial education leaders who can lead fundamental reforms that promote more effective instruction will be developed, tested, and shared.

The initiative will ensure that knowledge developed is useful to policy makers and practitioners who are working to improve student learning. Each center will be deeply engaged with the real world of schools where innovative strategies will be developed, research will be conducted, and findings will be disseminated. We will bring an engineering-type approach of ongoing evaluation and iterative improvement, not only to our own work, but to the schools and school-related organizations with which we work – a Stanford approach to creating excellence.

Stanford is a leader among U.S. universities making the improvement of K-12 education an institutional priority in its efforts to create ongoing, institutionalized collaborations among faculty from different corners of the university. In addition to providing useful knowledge and models of effective education, the initiative will serve as an example to other universities who seek to increase the impact of their work on the problems of education.

List of Centers

• Center for Education Policy Analysis
  
  
• Center for the Support of Excellence in Teaching
  
  
• Stanford Center for Leadership in Education