“Use-inspired” research mobilizes proven practices

SERP’s mission is to conduct a program of “use-inspired” research and development, with a goal of developing, testing, and mobilizing effective programs and practices. Problems of student achievement, and the practices that support it, are at center stage in determining the research and development agenda. The work places as much emphasis on follow-through to link knowledge and products as on research. Much of the research is carried out in classrooms, where innovative materials, methods, professional development, and organizational supports are developed, tested, honed, and taken to scale.

SERP is an organization, designed to provide the infrastructure to make a coherent and sustained research, development, and implementation program possible. SERP’s coordinating organization is responsible for executive management, quality control, communications, financial oversight, and long-term planning. Most of SERP’s work is carried out in field sites – school districts or groups of districts where practitioners, researchers and local communities work together in a sustained way, defining and pursuing key lines of research, development and implementation.

SERP is a partnership, a broad coalition of the partners most involved in the delivery of education. Together, the alliances of SERP partners possess the sense of ownership necessary to promote the magnitude of change we propose. School districts and universities will be primary collaborators. But others, including suppliers of educational materials and tools, professional development providers and non-profit organizations will be brought into the work as appropriate. In addition, the vitality of the SERP program is enhanced by the participation of private foundations, federal agencies, and the coalitions within the education community.