Deep and reciprocal connections between practice and research

SERP stimulates innovation in education through sustained collaborations among distinguished researchers, educators, and designers. SERP partnerships expand the capacity for continuous improvement while remaining mindful of what teachers do, how schools operate, and how students learn.
More from Bruce Alberts & Suzanne Donovan

News and Notes

  • The National Research Council (NRC) recently issued a draft conceptual framework in science designed to guide the K-12 standards and “move science education toward a more coherent vision.” Two members of the SERP Design Team, Helen Quinn and Jonathan Osborne, participated in this effort with Helen Quinn serving as the chair of NRC's committee of eighteen experts in the field. read more
  • The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded a grant of close to $20 million dollars to the SERP Institute to address middle school reading comprehension as part of the IES Reading for Understanding Research Initiative. The grant is one of five IES has awarded in an effort to speed up the R&D process aimed at addressing comprehension across all grade levels. Catherine Snow, Kurt Fischer, and Robert Selman of Harvard University; Jonathan Osborne of Stanford University; Lowry Hemphill of Wheelock College; and Suzanne Donovan of SERP Institute will play lead roles, with many others involved. Four districts have signed on as partners – Boston, Brockton, and Falmouth public school districts in Massachusetts, and the San Francisco Unified School District in California. The new initiative extends work that members of this research team have been engaged in for several years through SERP partnerships supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Leon Lowenstein Foundation, Inc, the Spencer Foundation, and the John S. and Cynthia L. Reed Foundation. Snow, one of the nation’s most prominent experts on literacy, will be devoting half of her time to the project in each of the next five years. download press release

Thanks to SERP Sponsors

SERP Field Sites

The SERP field sites are structured as a set of three closely connected, and partially overlapping, groups.

Karling Aguilera-Fort “We are not working with someone who is telling us, 'This is what you need to do'. We are partnering with people who are asking us, 'What are your needs? How can we help you?'.”

Karling Aguilera-Fort,
Assistant Superintendent Academics & Professional Development - Learning Support and Equity, San Francisco USD
other collaborators