Center for Reimagining Education

Center for Reimagining Education
Name	Center for Reimagining Education
Type	Nonprofit research and advocacy organization
Founded	2018
Location	Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Focus	Educational innovation, policy, curriculum redesign

Center for Reimagining Education The Center for Reimagining Education is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, focused on transforming K–12 and higher learning systems through interdisciplinary research, policy design, and practitioner networks. It engages scholars, policymakers, school leaders, and civic institutions to prototype curricular models and assessment strategies aligned with 21st-century civic and workforce needs. The Center convenes stakeholders across academia, philanthropy, and public agencies to scale experimental programs and evaluate outcomes.

History

The Center for Reimagining Education was founded in 2018 with leadership drawn from faculty and administrators at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. Early funders included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. Its founding advisory board featured leaders from Teach For America, KIPP Foundation, NewSchools Venture Fund, American Institutes for Research, and RAND Corporation. Initial pilot projects partnered with school districts such as Boston Public Schools, New York City Department of Education, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Chicago Public Schools, as well as charter networks including Uncommon Schools and Success Academy Charter Schools. The Center drew comparative research methods from collaborations with University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, and University of Toronto.

Over time, the Center expanded programmatic work influenced by frameworks developed at World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, UNICEF, and UNESCO. Its directors have lectured at Princeton University, Yale University, Duke University, Northwestern University, and Johns Hopkins University. The Center’s archives record convenings with policymakers from U.S. Department of Education, European Commission, Ontario Ministry of Education, and New Zealand Ministry of Education.

Mission and Vision

The Center’s mission statement emphasizes equity, creativity, and evidence, aligning with thought leaders from John Dewey-influenced traditions and contemporary reformers such as Diane Ravitch, Linda Darling-Hammond, Ken Robinson, and Pedro Noguera. Its vision situates schooling alongside civic infrastructures like National Endowment for the Arts and workforce intermediaries such as National Science Foundation programs. Strategic priorities reference models practiced in districts highlighted by Education Week and by reform coalitions including Broad Foundation initiatives. The Center articulates measurable goals reflecting standards discussed by Council of Chief State School Officers and assessment paradigms advocated by American Educational Research Association and National Academy of Education.

Programs and Initiatives

Program strands include curriculum redesign laboratories inspired by collaborations with Carnegie Mellon University and MIT Media Lab, teacher professional development cohorts modeled after Relay Graduate School of Education and Bank Street College of Education, and innovation incubators analogous to XPRIZE and Nesta. Signature initiatives encompass a competency-based assessment pilot with districts that echo practices in New Hampshire's Commissioner of Education, a civic learning network aligned with Civic Nation and iCivics, and a STEM-to-careers partnership drawing on expertise from Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Intel. The Center runs fellowship programs patterned on Fulbright Program, Rhodes Scholarship networks, and Erasmus+ exchanges, and hosts annual symposia with participants from American Association of School Administrators, National PTA, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and International Society for Technology in Education.

Research and Publications

The Center publishes white papers, policy briefs, and peer-reviewed studies coauthored with researchers at SRI International, Brookings Institution, Urban Institute, Pew Research Center, and The RAND Corporation. Topics include competency-based pathways studied alongside metrics from OECD's PISA analyses, case studies referencing reforms in Finland, Singapore, South Korea, and Estonia, and equity audits informed by methodologies from Annie E. Casey Foundation and Chalkbeat reporting. Journals that have featured the Center’s work include Educational Researcher, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Phi Delta Kappan.

Partnerships and Collaborations

The Center maintains formal partnerships with higher education institutions such as Boston College, Northeastern University, Teachers College, Columbia University, and University of California, Los Angeles, and workforce partners including CareerWise USA and Year Up. It collaborates with philanthropic partners including Carnegie Corporation, Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation, and with advocacy organizations like Education Trust, Stand for Children, Learning Policy Institute, and New America. International collaborations have included projects with OECD, World Bank Group, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and national agencies in Australia, Denmark, Germany, and Japan.

Funding and Governance

Funding sources combine multi-year grants from private foundations such as Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, corporate sponsorships from Salesforce and Amazon Web Services, government contracts with U.S. Department of Education and state education agencies, and philanthropic donations from families linked to Waltons and Packard Foundation. Governance is overseen by a board including executives from Ford Foundation, emeriti from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and former officials from U.S. Department of Education and Council of the Great City Schools. Audit and compliance practices align with standards promoted by Council on Foundations and Independent Sector.

Impact and Evaluation

Evaluation of Center initiatives uses randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs conducted with partners such as Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research, University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis, and Harvard Kennedy School analysts. Reported impacts include improvements on indicators tracked by Every Student Succeeds Act reporting frameworks, case metrics comparable to outcomes in Houston Independent School District reform studies, and qualitative findings archived with Smithsonian Institution’s education collections. External reviews have been commissioned from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, American Institutes for Research, and Mathematica Policy Research.

Category:Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts Category:Educational research organizations