2021–2023: LPI Impact Report
The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) released its first impact report 3 years ago, in spring 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. Even in those first few months, it was strikingly clear that the pandemic was affecting communities differently based on deep inequalities in income, access to health care and services, and digital connectivity. At the posting of this impact report, which covers our work since that time, the pandemic has proven to be more devastating than anyone could have imagined in the beginning: Hundreds of thousands of students have lost their primary caregivers, economic stability is even more elusive for many, and millions of children are struggling with both academic losses and mental health challenges.
Combine the pandemic’s destruction with the ongoing threat of school shootings, climate-related environmental disasters, pervasive racism, and social and political contention, and it is clear that our country’s children and youth carry an unprecedented burden of trauma and stress. As policymakers and educators are faced with the daunting issue of addressing student physical safety, mental well-being, and learning recovery, one thing is especially clear: Returning to business as usual in education is not an option.
Right now, we have a historic opportunity—a responsibility, even—to reinvent and redesign schools to better serve students, educators, and families, now and in the future. For the past 2 years, LPI has intensified our research on how to fund and organize schools and teaching in ways that enable all students to learn and thrive. We are working with hundreds of partners and policymakers across the country to reimagine traditional structures and practices; to rethink the way in which schools are organized around time, physical space, educator expertise, curriculum, and instruction; and to redesign schools around principles of equitable resources and access, culturally responsive teaching and authentic learning, stronger relationships, and wraparound supports for children and families.
This impact report reflects LPI’s efforts to inform practice and policy so that they enable powerful new approaches to education that are grounded in our growing knowledge of human development, learning, and effective teaching. The work documented in these pages aims to develop models supporting equitable and empowering learning for every child that will carry them—and our society—through the next century.
—Linda Darling-Hammond, President and CEO
Download the Report >
This is the blueprint laying out the foundation for the changes we need to make the system we need.
