Education
K-12 Education
With the support of the Spencer and Joyce foundations, the Rockefeller Institute of Government is studying institutional arrangements that could serve as models for an education standards-setting and testing oversight entity.
Critics have bemoaned the lack of transparency in our educational accountability systems, stemming from state-by-state variation in standards and measures of proficiency. Yet few stakeholders would be happy to have the federal government step in to establish national standards and tests. But there may be a third way: the development of intergovernmental entities involving states and education experts in a collaborative process to identify national standards and improve testing, without direct control from Washington.
In October of 2007, the Institute convened a national symposium to discuss the need and prospects for such an approach. Existing interstate approaches such as Achieve and the New England Common Assessment Program, new ideas such as Education Sector Co-Director Thomas Toch’s proposal for an agency to regulate testing modeled on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and models from other policy areas were all discussed. A briefing paper is here; a summary article on the forum is here; and the full forum transcript is here.
Community Colleges
The Institute is developing a new project to examine the greatly expanded role of America’s community colleges. They enroll almost half of all post-high school students and are key gateways to good jobs and careers. But their accessibility and impact vary greatly among states.
Higher Education
The Rockefeller Institute’s Higher Education Program seeks practical approaches to the issues facing colleges and universities by combining the expertise of practitioners and researchers in higher education with the contributions and concerns of trustees and opinion leaders in government, labor, and business. The Program enlists major stakeholders in higher education in a common effort to link policy development with research, citizen and constituent commitment, and effective implementation. Its goal is to move major policy issues in higher education from divisive debate to reasoned discussion and, hopefully, to rational resolution.
Staff Contacts
Allison Armour-Garb is director of education studies at the Rockefeller Institute.
Donald J. Boyd is a senior fellow with expertise in state and local education spending.
Joseph Burke is a senior fellow with expertise in higher education, including the role of college and university presidents, system governance, accountability, academic outcomes and assessment, and the interrelation of teaching, research, and service.
Thomas Gais, co-director of the Rockefeller Institute, conducts research on federalism, the implementation of social programs, and state spending and fiscal capacity, including state education resources.
David Shaffer is a senior fellow concentrating on educational accountability, community colleges, and economic development. Before joining the Institute he worked on the Commissioner's Review of the New York State Education Department in 1996 and served as a member of the Governor's Commission on Education Reform in 2004.
Robert B. Ward is the deputy director of the Rockefeller Institute and heads the Institute's State and Local Government Finance research.