Center for Reimagining Education Research
The Center for Reimagining Education Research (CRER) connects education research, policy, and practice to support the learning and collaboration needed for true K-12 systems change.
This is a big question—one that calls on researchers, educators, policymakers, and funders to work together in new ways. With our partners, we reimagine how education research can be produced, valued, adapted, and rooted in day-to-day work. We look for ways to gather diverse perspectives to bring about meaningful change in schools and communities across the country.
Research that flows and adapts with learning…
and is co-designed with practitioners and policymakers…
can build durable systems that work for students, educators, and communities.
Why now?
Today’s educators and researchers face ever-increasing constraints, from deep funding cuts and political headwinds to entrenched exclusionary systems, limited time, leadership turnover, and burnout. Too often, research is disconnected from real-world challenges, and separated from real-time learning and practice.
How do we work?
We work as curious researchers seeking to understand how research is developed and used in education, and as active designers of tools and experiences that weave together ideas from research, policy, and practice.
Learn with us.
How can learning and research flow together to drive deeper understanding?
For research to be a powerful tool in educational change, we must foster ongoing, multi-directional processes of sensemaking where research and learning flow together with local contextual knowledge and practical wisdom. This isn’t “the norm” and requires learning for everyone.
Design with us.
How can we design research, tools, and experiences that are rooted in shared expertise and responsibility?
Research developed with partners, shaped by multiple perspectives and oriented toward policy and practice is essential for durable systems change. That’s why we engage in co-design in our own work and help others build more collaboration into their own work.
Drive change with us.
How can we strengthen the conditions that make durable systems change possible?
Systems problems require systems solutions—not quick fixes. We work to rebalance power in education and research systems by strengthening the research–policy–practice ecosystem in ways that center educators, students, and communities.
Highlights of Our Work
users to date of the Research-Practice Partnership Health and Effectiveness Toolkit
national and international participants in collaborative development of: Towards a Field for Collaborative Education Research: Developing a framework for the Complexity of Necessary Learning
RPPs, including over 300 individuals, involved in the RPP State of the Field report
citations of our research
in grant funding from major education research funders
Who do we work with?
CRER works with organizations and individuals who care about reimagining education research and transforming K-12 systems as much as we do. Learn how we work with educators, researchers, and funders.
