Improving Student Achievement: What Red, Blue, and Purple States Are Doing Right

Much of the current conversation about student achievement focuses on which states hold the correct answers—often through a political lens. Yet when we focus on what works across different states, the same threads emerge when it comes to what investments and strategies improve student achievement: comprehensive and evidence-based instructional design, sustained investment in principal and teacher capacity and support, and funding tied to student need. Experts will explore the evidence on effective approaches to improve and sustain student achievement, as well as how state leaders can work together to chart a stronger, more durable path forward.

Featured speakers include a governor and state education chiefs, who will discuss how they built coherent instructional systems rather than pursuing singular reforms, the impacts they are seeing, and how they use federal, state, and local resources to inform and support these efforts.

Speakers

• Ned Lamont, Governor of Connecticut, 2019–present
• Susana Córdova, Commissioner of Education, Colorado Department of Education
• Linda Darling-Hammond, Chief Knowledge Officer, Learning Policy Institute
• Sydnee Dickson, Special Advisor for the Department Chair, College of Education at the University of Utah; Former Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Utah State Board of Education
• Carey M. Wright, State Superintendent of Schools, Maryland State Department of Education