REEd is a university-based intermediary with deep ties to the TK–12 education community across the state. We are committed to moving research findings into practice and building the capacity of education systems to improve teaching and learning with the goal of reducing education inequities. We do this by testing professional growth systems for building capacity and using research practice partnerships to spread and deepen this work in many districts across the state and beyond.

Our Mission

To develop organizations’ capacity to continuously improve teacher professional growth systems so that teachers grow professionally, students achieve, and educational inequities are diminished.

1. Engage California organizations through research practice partnerships to create and sustain the conditions needed to implement high-quality systems
2. Bring specific expertise and a proven capacity-building process for fostering teacher professional growth
3. Enable knowledge transfer to accelerate systemic improvement and move the field
4. Anchored in an instructional framework

REEd distinguishes itself from other education organizations and university centers with an approach that combines three mutually reinforcing activities.

First, we engage in research practice partnerships with local and county agencies within California, as well as the California Department of Education. We work collaboratively with them to build capacity to implement and continuously improve teacher professional growth systems grounded in concrete instructional practices. During our engagements, we capture and generate new knowledge, tools, and an evidence base for resourcing and sustaining systemic improvement.

Second, we serve as a “capacity hub” to accelerate effective implementation. To do this, we cultivate partnerships with organizations that enable the implementation of practices grounded in REEd’s evidence base. We recommend partners to others based on the specific needs they have.

Lastly, we generate new knowledge and develop and disseminate tools, frameworks, and approaches from practice-based experience that local and county agencies can use for self-directed implementation. This work helps us to broadly spread the proven elements of the capacity building process.

REEd’s innovative method for achieving its mission consists of five guiding principles:

1. Co-design and collaboration: We engage individuals with diverse expertise from the REEd and Local Education Agency (LEA)/County of Education (COE) team in designing, developing, and testing innovations, just as we engaged California educators in building our teaching frames.
2. Place-based and enduring relationships: We focus on long-term, in-depth work with a single local, county, or state agency. Engagements’ durations range from one to five years depending on the specific needs of each client agency.
3. Educator capacity-building: We focus on ensuring that systems and the process of continuous improvement are led and owned by the internal team over time.
4. Continuous improvement: We emphasize the cycle of learning, not only to improve teacher professional growth systems, but also to transfer the process more broadly to other systems within the education agency.
5. Informing practice and research: We aim to develop materials, tools, and instructional approaches that can be practically implemented in classrooms, schools, and districts – while seeking to advance research and theory.