How We Select Our Projects
An Integrated Approach to Reform
American education is a sprawling enterprise, presenting us with a nearly endless number of possible topics to address. We select our projects because they have a number of qualities that we believe increase our capacity to leverage reform:
- They are timely; policymakers are turning attention to them.
- They offer Education Sector the opportunity to make substantial research and analytical contributions and thus move policy debates in new directions.
- They offer opportunities to leverage change on a wide scale through changes in public policy.
- They lend themselves to innovative ideas.
- We believe that funders will support work in these areas.
- And they align with the knowledge and expertise of Education Sector's staff, board of directors, and senior fellows.
Our areas of focus in K–12 Education and Higher Education also reflect our organizational belief in high-quality, publicly financed education, in high standards, in performance-driven systems and the importance of high-quality and timely information to such systems, in the potential of entrepreneurialism and innovation to spur improvement in education, in the value of educational options, and in the importance of basing education policies and practices on sound empirical evidence.
We also recognize that there are emerging policy debates and research topics that lend themselves particularly well to Education Sector analysis but that are outside of our planned program of work. We recognize the value of these targets of opportunity to our organizational brand, and we have reserved about 15 percent of our organizational capacity to respond to them. These projects present significant opportunities to improve student opportunities and outcomes.
Back to Our Mission and Strategy.
Also read The ES Way and What We Believe.
