The Forum for Forward Thinking
Who are we?
We are the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE), a not-for-profit organization committed to transforming public schools into more engaging, rigorous, and caring places for students to learn and teachers to teach. For almost 15 years we have been working with struggling schools and districts, serving as strategic partners to foundations and state departments of education, and conducting applied research to deepen the field’s knowledge about how to achieve meaningful and sustainable school improvement.
Why are we writing?
So, why are we choosing to start a blog now? Well, for starters, we think we have some good things to say! More importantly, after 15 years we have learned the great value of listening to and learning from our peers, our partners, and our friendly competitors. With this lesson firmly in hand, our goal is to make this blog a place (a forum!) where we try to understand as much we try to be understood.
What will we be writing about?
In addition to featuring entries from our staff and team of consultants, we will be bringing in guest bloggers from other organizations – the schools and districts we work with, universities other reform support organizations, policy makers and investors in educational change. Topics will be diverse but we will ask our contributors and commentators to stay focused on how the discourse will help improve the lives of young people in our schools. Instructional practice, school structure and governance, leadership, systems level reform, data use, theories of change, commentary on recent news, and reviews and reactions to the latest research will all find their place on The Forum around this focal point.
We hope that what follows will give you a good idea of who we are, where we’ve been, and where we are hoping we as a field can go. As we enter this new decade, immersed in new challenges and opportunities, we believe the conditions are right for frank, constructive and actionable dialogue around what needs to be done to make a difference and a big difference quickly and sustainably in what all agree are the unacceptable status quo for so many students in our public schools. Let’s get started. See you on the blog!
