Education and Society Program

The Aspen Education & Society Program, in partnership with The 74, published a series of Q&A’s to commemorate the historic 1989 Education Summit, a gathering of 49 out of the nation’s 50 governors, only the third time in American history this occurred.

The Aspen Education & Society Program convened a broad bipartisan group of stakeholders to create new resources for policymakers, parents and students to design and implement effective, research-based education policy. The tools focus on creating true equity in education with parents, students and the state’s workforce needs placed front and center.

The Aspen Institute Education & Society Program is committed to ensuring the benefits of public education extend to all students, with a special focus on correcting the under-education of students of color and students from low-income families. We pursue this work by informing, influencing, and inspiring education leaders, and through developing our staff as leaders for equity - maintaining a focus on diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our operations.

We need to let students, families, and communities set the vision for education and we need to adopt a “nothing about them, without them” approach. Most importantly, we must look beyond the safe space of income inequality and talk about race and racism in our schools and education systems.

Across the country our partners are doing incredible work to research and reimagine American classrooms. The end goal, designing classrooms and schools where every student receives an equitable education, sounds deceptively simple, but it has eluded teachers, school leaders and policymakers for decades.

This suite of tools—including a series of infographics to help inform and guide local conversations—identifies eight equity priorities many leaders are already pursuing and identifies potential barriers to equity, key decision points, and opportunities to braid and blend federal funds to strengthen local equity priorities.

We partnered with Education Week to publish a collection of commentaries by leaders around the country offering a broad range of perspectives on the meaning of educational equity and how leaders from a variety of sectors and roles can work toward this vision.

The adoption of college- and career-ready standards raises the bar for student learning, and systems can support teachers in rising to the challenge by helping them become experts in the curriculum they are using.

This Time, With Feeling presents an approach to defining social and emotional development (SED), provides a summary of the research on SED, and illustrates the connection between college- and career-readiness standards and expectations and SED.

Leading for Equity outlines 10 commitments state chiefs and their state education agencies can make to advance educational equity for all students, regardless of background.

This framework is designed to help states make the most of this important opportunity. This framework examines eight equity priorities that states already are pursuing and identifies multiple provisions in ESSA that states can use to address each priority.

Core Ready Schools is a tool designed to assist schools in benchmarking implementation efforts against a comprehensive roadmap for fully implementing the Common Core State Standards.

Teacher leadership is emerging as a key strategy to increase retention of effective teachers and distribute responsibility for improving instruction, but it must be implemented strategically.

What's the current federal investment in education R&D, and what should it look like in the future? New infographics, briefs, & essays weigh in.

The Digital Resource Library (DRL) hosts all Education Program publications and materials from our learning network meetings, as well as a wealth of external resources relevant to our work.