State Leaders

As a state leader, your decisions create the conditions for lasting systemic change. You recognize the urgency to redesign education for a rapidly changing world and the skills and experiences young people need to thrive—not through mandates, but by pairing local trust and empowerment with evaluation and support.

You use your platform to set a clear north star, mobilize resources and data, design meaningful flexibilities and incentives, convene cross-sector partners, and set the tone for system-wide mindset and behavior change. The result: nimble education systems that center learners and communities and R&D systems that outlast political cycles, measurably improve student experiences and outcomes, and position your state as a national leader in evidence-based educational innovation.

How to Navigate This Page: Start with the assessment below to see where your state falls on the continuum and to surface the most relevant key actions or go straight to the recommendations section to explore the full range of plays. When you’re done, explore the “Resources” dropdown for state spotlights and the “Recommendations” dropdown for bright spots tied to each recommendation.

How State Leaders Advance Education R&D

Vision and Culture Setting

You model and champion the adaptive levers (culture, leadership development, learning networks) that nurture the conditions for innovation and drive a shared direction for transformation. 

Policy and Regulatory Authority

You pull the technical levers (policy, funding, infrastructure) that make system redesign possible and remove regulatory barriers that prevent transformation across your state.

Infrastructure and Capacity Building

You establish dedicated R&D offices, allocate sustained funding, build modern data systems, and staff the expertise to make education innovation systematic rather than episodic.

Statewide Convening and Network Support

You bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and communities in partnership to align sectors around systems transformation. 

State Leader Recommendations and Key Actions

Establish a state vision and goals that prioritize innovation and continuous improvement

Articulating a vision for education creates a shared purpose and direction for systems transformation. While serving as an important signal of a state’s support for student-centered learning and its commitment to local empowerment, a clear vision that prioritizes innovation and evidence-based improvement is also essential. This vision aligns programs, resources, roles, and initiatives, forming the foundation of R&D infrastructure.

Convene an advisory council of diverse stakeholders to inform the state’s vision, strategic goals, research agenda, and continued innovation and R&D work.

How:

  • Cast a wide net. Include practitioners from diverse contexts, local education system leaders, learners, caregivers, researchers, business and workforce leaders, postsecondary leaders, bipartisan policymakers and legislative staff, and community/advocacy organizations.
  • Design an advisory structure. Consider rotating membership that meets quarterly for strategic dialogue rather than updates. Provide stipends for participants and smaller working groups between meetings. Position members as active ambassadors who gather input from their networks and co-create communications to advocate across diverse audiences.
  • Demonstrate that input matters. Report back on how stakeholder feedback shaped decisions. Be explicit about advice that was taken or not and why. Share draft plans early enough for stakeholders to genuinely influence them. Publicly acknowledge council contributions when announcing initiatives to reinforce that their involvement drives real change.

Example:

Collaborate with the advisory council to co-create a learner-centered, future-facing vision and goals for education that explicitly prioritize innovation. 

How:

  • Establish R&D as a strategic priority that enables and drives innovation. If possible, partner with a neutral intermediary and/or community organizations to facilitate future-focused vision-setting sessions across regions.
  • Center learner and caregiver voice. Consider their experiences to shape priorities. For example, normalize requiring a learner representative on councils, task forces, or boards. 
  • Connect the state vision to pressing state challenges. Build cross-sector and bipartisan support. 
  • Publish the vision and strategic goals prominently on the SEA website. Provide accessible formats and clearly articulate why innovation matters.

Examples:

Develop a public-facing research agenda that identifies high-priority questions aligned with the vision and strategic goals. 

How:

  • Center learner, educator, and community needs in research questions. 
  • Make the agenda publicly accessible. Explicitly connect it to the state’s strategic goals. 
  • Require researchers to present their findings to the advisory council and broader system stakeholders. Connect evidence and learning back to the research agenda.
  • Update the research agenda annually. Account for evolving needs and emerging insights.

Examples:

Establish a dedicated office to oversee and drive state education R&D

States, whether through the education agency, a higher education institution, or an intermediary, can prioritize the dedicated space and capacity for innovation needed to improve and reimagine education.

Establish R&D Capacity through one of two mechanisms:

State Education Agency (SEA) based model. Establish an Office of Innovation or R&D to lead infrastructure development and R&D efforts, capture insights from innovative programs, and align research priorities with system needs.

How:

  • Create a dedicated Office of Innovation or R&D within the SEA. This model can be successful where conditions and infrastructure for innovation already exist.
  • Empower the office. Provide the R&D arm with clear decision-making authority, resources, and leadership buy-in to work across divisions and engage with executive leadership. 
  • Establish the mission. Charge the office with overseeing and advancing future-facing work to reimagine education. Distinguish this function from the SEA’s legal and historical function of ensuring compliance with state and federal law.
  • Consider using a consultancy model. Partner the office with other divisions to co-design forward-thinking solutions, then transition ownership to ensure sustained impact beyond the initial collaboration.

Examples:

 

Partnership model. Establish R&D capacity through intermediaries or higher education institutions.

How:

  • Partner with an external organization to house state R&D capacity. Consider higher education institutions or nonprofit intermediaries that could serve this function. This model combines the nimbleness and specialized expertise of independent organizations with the accountability and sustainability of publicly-backed institutions. 
  • Secure statutory authority. Advocate for legislation that designates the partner as an embedded collaborator in the state’s R&D infrastructure rather than a vendor or grantee. Advocate for sustainable, recurring line-item appropriations.
  • Balance coordination with independence. Maintain regular touchpoints and monitor alignment with SEA priorities while preserving the partner’s operational flexibility to attract talent, build culture, and pivot quickly on applied R&D that addresses real-world implementation challenges. 
  • Leverage the unique strengths of these organizations. Universities bring research infrastructure and credibility, while intermediaries bring deep community connections and cross-sector bridging capacity.

Examples:

Resource:

Devote FTEs for a director-level role and at least two research staff.

How: 

  • Hire a relational, practitioner-forward Director of Innovation or R&D. Prioritize strengths in building relationships, working cross-organizationally, applying systems thinking and innovation mindset,  translating research into action, and driving inquiry that solves real challenges. 
  • Build a research team. Consider at least two dedicated FTEs whose time is not consumed by compliance reporting or implementing assessment and accountability systems.

Examples:

Resources:

Develop a streamlined process for reviewing and approving research requests, with clear criteria aligned to state priorities.

How 

  • Establish a transparent process for research requests to the SEA. Publish criteria and conduct monthly reviews to evaluate requests based on alignment with the research agenda and state priorities, practitioner relevance, and plans for translating findings beyond academic audiences. 
  • Make the process transparent. Track approval decisions, assign division sponsors to shepherd approved requests, and make the entire process public so researchers understand expectations upfront.
  • Proactively recruit researchers to answer critical questions. Publish priority questions aligned to the state agenda, issue targeted RFPs, and reach out to university partners with offers of data access and state support to address specific challenges. Build long-term research-practice partnerships.
  • Require actionable communication. Research proposals should include practitioner briefs, interim findings with visualizations, and feedback loops where practitioners respond to emerging findings.

Example:

North Carolina: Research Review Process

Empower local leaders to test evidence-based solutions and develop innovative models that improve learner experiences and inform systems

State leaders can consider ways to lift administrative burdens, smooth the path to innovation, and provide the conditions and resources schools and districts need to transform student learning.

Expand, codify, and leverage system-wide policy flexibilities that invite and enable collaboration and innovation to move beyond current system limitations while also signaling a state’s commitment to a culture of trust and risk-taking.

How: 

  • Create statutory definitions of “innovation” and “education R&D.” Example definitions:
      • Innovation: A new or creative alternative to the existing instructional and administrative practices that is intended to improve learning or enhance academic opportunities for all learners.
      • Education R&D: Applied research and development in real-world education environments focused on developing, testing, and evaluating innovative solutions—tools, products, features, or systems—to our nation’s most pressing education problems. 
  • Engage the state budgetary body. Advocate for flexible funding and the importance of innovation.
  • Leverage state-level charter school authorizers. These authorizers and other partners can seed innovative learning environments as laboratories for inclusive R&D.
  • Encourage districts to remove burdensome local regulations. Utilize district-driven statutory and regulatory flexibilities.
  • Apply for federal flexibilities and funding. Programs like Competitive Grants for State Assessments (CGSA) and Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) encourage the development of innovative student assessments.
  • Look beyond your state. Formally partner with national organizations that are piloting new approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment.

Examples:

Resources:

Establish or expand statutory innovation programs, pilots, zones, or statewide districts that integrate R&D that aligns with and informs the state’s research agenda.

How:

  • Charge the Office of Innovation (SEA-based model) or an approved university or intermediary (Partnership model) with administering and overseeing a formal innovation or pilot program. External partners can generate solutions that stretch beyond system constraints and utilize capacity that an SEA may not have for R&D. 
    • Programmatic considerations include:
      • A planning and development phase. Program appropriations should provide participating learning communities with an on-ramp for their efforts and incentivize participation.
      • Application criteria. Applications should require a description of the innovative approaches systems want to adopt, what partners will be involved, flexibilities required, metrics for program and learner success, and how progress will be evaluated and communicated.
      • Criteria for inclusion. Prioritize system leaders who have already demonstrated successful innovation efforts and/or proposals that include partnerships beyond the K-12 sector (e.g., with businesses, postsecondary, and or community organizations).
      • Participants’ expertise and context. Tackle challenges aligned with state strategic priorities that can inform system transformation.
      • Technical support. The availability of technical support enables capacity building across all components of the design process.
      • Statutory feedback loop requirements. Integrate research, evaluation, and reporting on the program. Elevate findings and inform continuous improvements and systems change.
  • Build in incentives and flexibilities from system constraints.
    • Make flexibilities visible. Clearly communicate the authorities provided to participants.
    • Streamline waiver and/or exemption processes. Consider offering blanket waivers where possible to enable adjustments during evidence-based improvement efforts.
    • Differentiate assessment or accountability requirements for program participants. 
      • Differentiating requirements for these systems or schools means not compromising on high expectations, but better aligning high expectations with a school’s unique context and community.  
      • Piloting new approaches with smaller groups of schools utilizing innovative models can also provide a lower-stakes way to test those approaches, validate assessment data, and uncover logistical bottlenecks.
    • Balance comparable quantitative data with contextual qualitative data. Signal the value of both. 

Examples:

Resources:

Identify and build the needed capacity that impacts mindset and behavior change.

More attention must be paid to the human factors of systems change at every level—the knowledge, skills, and mindsets required for educators to lead, conduct, engage in, or even make better use of R&D.

Leverage your platform to publicly normalize innovation, R&D, experimentation, and learning from what doesn’t work.

How:

  • Make R&D visible in all communications. Explicitly discuss the importance of testing approaches, learning from implementation, and iterating toward better solutions in speeches to educators, school boards, legislative testimony, and town halls.
  • Connect R&D to strategic priorities. Show how an R&D mindset supports state goals (e.g., improving academic outcomes, improving teacher retention, and strengthening career readiness).
  • Share your own learning journey. Model vulnerability and discuss times when state initiatives required course corrections or when data revealed the need to pivot.
  • Reframe “failure” as learning. Publicly celebrate schools and districts that tried something innovative, learned from it, and adapted—even if initial results weren’t what they hoped.
  • Signal tolerance for risk. Be explicit that you expect some experiments won’t work as planned, and that’s acceptable as long as teams learn and share those learnings.

Examples:

  • North Carolina: Former North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt launched Operation Polaris as an “opportunity to rethink and retool our strategies for teaching and learning” and spoke frequently about the state’s commitment to reimagining systems.
  • Virginia: During his time in office, Gov. Glenn Youngkin used his platform to speak about innovation as “a top priority since day one” and to cast the state’s Lab Schools as living laboratories tied to workforce pathways. 
  • Maine: Commissioner of Education Pender Makin urges educators to “be bold… design and innovate,” and DOE communications routinely recap what the state is learning from Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures (RREV) pilots. 
  • North Dakota: Former Gov. Doug Burgum and State Superintendent for Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler regularly praised districts using innovation waiver authority, even when approaches were still being tested, publicly valuing the act of trying and learning.

Design R&D programs, innovation grants, and pilot opportunities that require genuine community engagement from problem identification through solution design. Embed shared ownership and accountability. 

How:

  • Expect authentic community engagement. Require innovation program applicants to demonstrate how learners, families, educators, and community members informed the proposed approach.
  • Provide guidance on meaningful engagement. Share rubrics or examples that distinguish tokenistic input from genuine co-creation.
  • Resource participation appropriately. Include explicit budget line items for stipends, child care, translation, and other supports that enable diverse participation in grant budgets.
  • Close feedback loops publicly. Regularly report to communities how their input shaped state decisions and what you’re learning from R&D efforts.

Examples:

Elevate educators, schools, and districts demonstrating innovative practices aligned with your state’s priorities. Recognize that peer-to-peer learning is more persuasive than top-down mandates. 

How:

  • Build a searchable repository. Collect effective practices from your state with enough detail for others to adapt them to their context.
  • Spotlight innovations systematically. Feature different schools and districts monthly in newsletters, social media, state board meetings, and conferences.
  • Facilitate site visits. Create a network of demonstration schools willing to host visitors and share their learning.
  • Host innovation showcases. Convene annual or regional events where innovative educators present their work to peers.
  • Leverage various channels for dissemination. Utilize social media, video case studies, podcasts, and local media coverage rather than relying on formal reports alone.

Examples: 

For each strategic priority, map how learner experiences should change and what adult behavior changes are needed at each system level to realize that vision (“implementation chain”).

How:

  • Articulate concrete descriptions of learner experience changes. For example, instead of “implement competency-based learning,” describe how learners will have multiple ways to demonstrate mastery, receive growth-focused feedback, and exercise agency in setting learning goals. Use vivid scenarios like “By 2027, a 10th grader in any [state] high school will be able to…” and engage learners themselves in describing what they want to experience differently.
  • Describe specific behavior changes at every level of the system. What do teachers, specialists, principals, district leaders, regional support staff, and SEA staff need to do differently to make the vision a reality?
  • Determine and track measures. Commit to and plan for measurement and data collection to track changes in behavior and implementation.

Resource:

Convene philanthropic partners to share priorities and invite alignment. Coordinated support amplifies impact and reduces fragmentation burdens on education systems and communities without sacrificing foundation independence.

How: 

  • Share the state’s vision, strategic plan and learning agenda with philanthropy. Connect the learning agenda to community-based school design and identify opportunities to build evidence for scaling and capacity gaps where philanthropic support could help.
  • Host annual convenings with philanthropic partners. Transparently share progress and challenges, invite funders to share their priorities and connections to state goals, and identify potential areas of alignment without requiring coordinated grantmaking.
  • Ask for the support you need. Make it easy for philanthropy to plug in by providing clear guidance on helpful types of support. 
  • Share evaluation plans. Help funders see how investments will be studied.
  • Be a connector. Introduce funders and potential grantees. 
  • Coordinate demonstration site selection. Work with funders to identify districts with committed leadership, representative demographics, and capacity to serve as sites to learn from. 
  • Agree on shared outcomes to track and create mechanisms for regular learning sharing among funders, implementers, and the state.

Modernize state longitudinal data systems (SLDS)

Robust and reliable data across systems are the backbone of strong R&D.

Transform fragmented data systems into a connected infrastructure that follows learners from early childhood through the workforce. Establish the governance, legal frameworks, and human capacity to ensure data flows seamlessly across agencies.

How:

  • Educate local system leaders. Build understanding of the importance and potential of state longitudinal data systems.
  • Codify cross-agency data governance in statute. Mandate participation from education, workforce, health, and/or human services agencies, plus public members. Ensure transparency, shared decision-making authority, and sustainability across leadership transitions.
  • Establish an independent SLDS entity. Charge it with serving as a neutral broker to manage data sharing and access, ensure priorities aren’t constrained by any single agency, and maintain privacy and legal compliance.
  • Conduct asset mapping and invest in human capacity. Identify existing technology, data, funding, and policy strengths and gaps, then target investments toward dedicated roles like data scientists, chief data officers, and chief privacy officers.

Examples:

Leverage federal funding streams alongside state appropriations to secure sustained funding for the SLDS. 

How:

  • Braid federal funding. Combine ESSA, Perkins CTE, WIOA, Preschool Development Grants, SLDS grants, and other federal sources, coordinating across agencies to demonstrate how improved data infrastructure serves multiple program goals.
  • Codify SLDS funding in the state budget. Provide annual appropriations for operations, staff, technology, and source system improvements. Include governing board authority to recommend additional capacity needs to the legislature.
  • Prioritize investments in the weakest contributing systems. Use asset mapping to identify gaps in early childhood, postsecondary, workforce, and other cross-sector data sources, then use blended funding to strengthen these pain points. 

Example:

Resources:

Shift data systems from compliance vehicles to decision-making tools. Capture success indicators that reflect a more holistic picture of a learner’s experience, such as durable skills or competencies, career readiness, and long-term economic mobility.

How:

  • Engage diverse stakeholders to define holistic indicators. Establish public work groups and advisory boards with educators, learners, families, employers, and community members, ensuring measures reflect what communities value beyond test scores.
  • Build infrastructure for longitudinal pathways data. Capture career and technical education, work-based learning, postsecondary outcomes, credential attainment, and workforce success, with requirements for annual reporting on learner pathways and workforce development.
  • Develop user-centered dashboards. Create strategic rollout plans that present holistic data accessibly for different audiences, supported by communications strategies tailored to educators, families, and community stakeholders.

Examples:

 

Leverage tools, including artificial intelligence-enabled options and technology platforms, to support and enable education R&D

Research and data must be made more accessible and actionable to be utilized for either continuous improvement or rapid innovations.

Create formal partnerships with education technology providers to co-develop tools that serve state R&D priorities.

How:

  • Identify technology gaps that inhibit effective R&D (data analysis, research synthesis and digestibility, implementation dashboards). Issue RFPs for tech partners interested in co-developing solutions aligned with state research agenda priorities. Explore ways that AI could make all of these systems more efficient and accessible.
  • Prioritize developing tools, including AI, for measuring real-time student experience. Explore and test emerging technologies, such as AI-enabled video and audio analysis, digital trace data, and sensor-based observation, that make it possible to gather continuous, unobtrusive insights into student engagement, interaction patterns, and classroom climate. 
  • Provide access to state data and pilot sites in exchange for customized tool development. Require partners to design for practitioners (not just researchers). Include educators and district leaders in product design processes.
  • Build in feedback loops. Improve products based on user experience. Ensure tools address questions in the state research agenda while meeting practical implementation needs.

Create a state-level framework to guide responsible technology integration in education R&D.

How:

  • Develop a comprehensive state technology strategy for education R&D. Convene diverse stakeholders to define appropriate and inappropriate uses of technology platforms (including AI), establish student data privacy and security standards, require transparency and human oversight, and explicitly address equity and bias concerns while aligning with broader state technology policies.
  • Create a vetting process. Establish a review committee with technical and educational expertise to assess technology platforms and tools used in research, evaluation, and data analysis against clear criteria (data security, transparency, equity, effectiveness evidence). Publish an approved tools list with guidance on appropriate use.
  • Balance caution with innovation. Enable responsible technology experimentation (particularly with emerging tools like AI) while protecting learners. Fast-track tools that meet criteria while prohibiting those that don’t. Regularly review and update standards as technology and uses evolve.

Example:

Resource:

Create accessible dashboards that provide continuous feedback on innovation implementation, not just summative outcomes.

How:

  • Design dashboards showing meaningful leading indicators. Partner with evaluation experts to share implementation progress with both quantitative metrics and qualitative insights, not just final results.
  • Make dashboards accessible and share them widely with practitioners and the field. Provide data in timely intervals (monthly, not annually) useful for real-time decision-making.
  • Train users. Build skills on interpreting, communicating, and acting on dashboard data.

Examples:

Develop platforms to make research findings accessible and actionable for practitioners.

How:

  • Leverage AI as a tool. Use it to synthesize research literature and create plain language summaries of academic research on practitioner-relevant topics.
  • Build tools connecting practitioners to relevant evidence. Include implementation guidance, practitioner reviews, and context about applicability rather than just research findings.
  • Establish a centralized clearinghouse. Populate it with adoptable and adaptable resources and tools highlighting proven practices.
  • Signal that the state is staying on the pulse of emerging research. Update resources regularly and communicate updates broadly so practitioners know these resources exist and can access them easily.

Examples: 

Build human capacity through partnerships, networks, and community engagement

To be effective, R&D must directly engage the educators, students, families, and communities it aims to serve. As state leaders develop their priorities based on statewide challenges, they can engage with local leaders to build capacity and relationships among people doing the work.

Establish a statewide innovation network, either through SEA-supported statutory authority or by formally partnering with an intermediary organization, that can build bridges across researchers, educators, workforce, higher education, policymakers, and communities to support R&D learning and capacity building.

How:

  • Establish a governance structure. Approve statutory language for an SEA-led network or contract with an intermediary with a track record of cross-sector convening. 
  • Ensure diverse membership. Ensure contextual, demographic, and political variation among members.
  • Secure dedicated funding for convening. Provide opportunities for learning and relationship-building through virtual and in-person convenings focused on sharing challenges and promising practices. Organize annual flagship events that bring together stakeholders across the education sector.
  • Connect the network to the state research agenda and policy development. Position it to tackle broader systemic challenges, not just isolated innovations. 
  • Enlist bipartisan champions for the network. Embed buy-in that outlasts political cycles and leadership changes.

Example:

Create a systematic matchmaking process that connects districts and community-based organizations with university researchers, specialized intermediary organizations, and cross-sector partners to support their local R&D needs.

How:

  • Build a research partnership ecosystem. Establish relationships with university systems, intermediary organizations, and cross-sector partners (workforce, higher education, business, community). Understand their capacities and engagement models, and match them with districts based on needs, expertise, geographic proximity, and context.
  • Facilitate genuine partnership. Subsidize participation costs so access isn’t limited to well-resourced districts. Provide guidance on how to establish collaborative research-practice partnerships so research is additive rather than extractive.
  • Monitor partnership quality. Remove policy or other barriers that inhibit partnership formation. Track which partnerships are most valuable for continuous improvement. 
  • Celebrate and disseminate successes. Build momentum and encourage broader adoption of RPPs.
  • Provide structured support for RPPs. Fund collaborative projects that blend state and university resources and build district capacity for in-house action research and evaluation. 

Example: 

North Carolina: NC Learning Research Network

Provide technical support for R&D activities and continuous improvement

Even those who are predisposed to change need support to see it through. Real, sustained change requires dedicated resources to access research partners, professional learning, and capacity that schools and districts don’t have in-house for design and implementation.

Create dedicated state budget allocations for technical support providers to build district and school capacity for R&D and sustainable innovation.

How:

  • Fund technical assistance and capacity building. Include dedicated line items in state education budgets with multi-year commitments to enable sustained partnerships and avoid episodic funding challenges.
  • Fund planning planning and development phases. Provide on-ramps for participating communities to prepare before full implementation.
  • Build provisions for evaluation capacity alongside technical support. Enable districts and schools to develop sustainable R&D capabilities beyond single initiatives.

Engage strategically with federal and regional technical assistance networks to strengthen state innovation and R&D capacity.

*Note: Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) and Comprehensive Centers (CCs) are federally funded, no-cost regional support networks that partner with state and local education agencies to co-design and deliver evidence-building (RELs) and capacity-building technical assistance (CCs)—from data analysis and research-practice partnerships to training/coaching—aligned to states’ most pressing priorities and improvement goals. As the federal government reshapes its research and technical assistance infrastructure, including the RELs and Comprehensive Centers CCs, states can partner with and leverage these networks to tackle their highest priorities and challenges. As operations evolve, state leaders can cultivate relationships, signal demand for high-impact research partnerships, and align available federal expertise with state R&D goals.

How:

  • Keep the connection alive. With the RELs and Comprehensive Centers reinstated, state chiefs or a designee can serve on a governing board or engage with these networks to advance your state’s research and innovation priorities. 
  • Align federal and state learning agendas. Identify specific areas—such as personalized learning, educator pipelines, or assessment innovation—where federal partners could provide data, evaluation design, or technical assistance once operational. Begin developing shared research questions that reflect both state and federal priorities.
  • Leverage additional capacity. In addition to leveraging federally funded support, partner with nearby universities, regional service centers, or national intermediaries that can provide similar evidence-building or evaluation support. 
  • Use and contribute to existing resources. Review the What Works Clearinghouse, IES Practice Guides, and/or REL Toolkits (which help practitioners implement the tool guides) to identify transferable lessons and share your own innovations to strengthen cross-state learning as these networks relaunch.
  • Signal demand for technical assistance. Communicate to federal partners and your congressional delegation how REL and CC support contribute to state R&D infrastructure. Demonstrating clear state use cases can sustain and expand support for these programs while leveraging them to advance state transformation goals.

Develop and publish accessible guides that help local leaders and practitioners understand and leverage available flexibilities and incentives for innovation.

How:

  • Document state education flexibility opportunities that could be leveraged for innovation. Include statutory innovation or grant programs, waivers and exemption processes, budget flexibility, and empowerment options through local control. Connect them to the state’s vision and goals.
  • Promote these flexibilities through your platforms. 
  • Amplify examples. Tell stories about how districts have successfully used these flexibilities and resource braiding to support innovation.
  • Update flexibility guides regularly based on new policies and practitioner experiences.

Examples:

Create template RFPs and procurement documents that make it easier for districts to secure quality technical support for R&D work.

How:

  • ​​Draft model RFPs. Articulate clear expectations for technical support providers and R&D partnerships around capacity building, knowledge transfer, and continuous improvement approaches.
  • Provide sample scopes of work and evaluation criteria to help districts select quality partners.

Establish and maintain a state clearinghouse of innovative and effective practices and models with resources to support educator implementation.

How:

  • Stay relevant. Identify, vet, and regularly update resources based on new evidence and practitioner and researcher input.
  • Create feedback mechanisms. Invite educators to share their experiences using the resources to continuously improve quality and relevance.

Resource:

State Education R&D Readiness Continuum

Emerging
Isolated innovation
Minimal capacity
Risk-averse
Limited partnerships
Developing
Co-created vision
Building systems
Experimenting
Growing connections
Advancing
Strategic integration
Robust infrastructure
Empowering
Cross-sector collaboration

Take the Assessment

Fill out the self-assessment to understand your state’s position on the Education R&D Readiness Continuum.

Take the Assessment

Voices From the Field

“To make lasting progress for students, we must pair innovation with evidence. Education R&D gives us the structure to test bold ideas, learn what truly drives improvement, and bring effective solutions to scale. When every dollar and decision is anchored in what helps children learn and thrive, we turn innovation from aspiration into impact.”
— Catherine Truitt Former Superintendent of Public Instruction, North Carolina
“You’ve got to have a strong strategic plan as the foundation of this. You’ve got to involve the entire agency, every single office, every department has to see themselves in this plan and understand their role right from the beginning. I think you’ve got to establish very clear metrics. What are the outcomes that you’re looking for? How are you going to measure those outcomes, with what frequency? And then most importantly, what are you going to do with the data once it’s collected?… I think you’ve got to make sure that you are very clear in your communication, not only with your stakeholders but also with those folks inside the agency, with your legislature.”
— Dr. Carey Wright State Superintendent of Schools, Maryland
“One of the things that we’ve learned in an R&D environment is that leadership matters. I need the flexibility in my role to build relationships with my school districts and not to be the police at their doorstep. To be a problem solver, to visit with them and say, ‘Well, have we thought about this?’…And it’s not just flexibility, but vision – the visionary leadership to help guide and strategize.”
— Ann Ellefson Director of Academic Support, North Dakota Department of Public Instruction
“Educational innovation runs deep in Kentucky’s DNA. For more than three decades, since the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, educators across the Commonwealth have embraced the challenge of reimagining how schools can innovate to better serve every learner and community.”
— Dr. Lu Young Vice Chair, Kentucky State Board of Education, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership Studies at the University of Kentucky (UK), and Director of Next Generation Educational Partnerships, UK Next Generation Leadership
“State longitudinal data systems are foundational infrastructure for strong education systems. When data flows across K-12, postsecondary pathways, and workforce, with clear shared governance, strong privacy, and sustained funding, leaders can see what helps learners, earners, and communities thrive. Colorado is building that connective tissue so stakeholders get timely, useful insights and we can iterate together on what works.”
— Danielle Ongart Assistant Commissioner, Student Pathways & Engagement Unit, Colorado Department of Education
“Good policy is intended to change student experience in a way that will lead to greater achievement or attainment. But too often in our country, we pass policy and then measure whether students learned more — paying little attention to what happens in the middle. That’s why mapping out the implementation chain is so important — it’s how you get to the level of specificity and alignment required to go from concept to the classroom.”
— Kunjan Narechania Former Assistant State Superintendent, Louisiana

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