CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2021
Drawing on decades of research, policy, and practice, Jennifer A. O'Day and Marshall S. Smith show how strategies for pursuing educational quality and equal outcomes for all students can be linked, presenting an ambitious idea of the future of American education and a comprehensive theory of change for enacting that vision. The authors argue that systemic causes require systemic solutions. Analyzing the failures of past efforts to address and remedy systemic inequality, O'Day and Smith maintain that our current standards-based policy framework needs to be connected to a continuous improvement approach to build on and scale up successes and to address gaps in outcomes. They emphasize the value of focusing on a small set of high-leverage issues that are particularly salient for underserved students, and they call for deeper coordination between schools and community-based organizations to mobilize a coherent response to in-school and out-of-school inequities.
The authors outline a change strategy that incorporates a balance of pressure and support from three sources: government and administrative policy, professional accountability and networking, and collective engagement of parents and other stakeholders. The authors combine discussion of research with examples of promising practices and progress in school systems across the country, and offer opportunities for readers to begin and sustain improvement efforts.
Jennifer A. O'Day is an Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research. Over the past thirty years, Dr. O'Day has carried out research, advised national and state policy makers, and written extensively in the areas of systemic standards-based reform, educational equity, accountability, and capacity-building strategies. While her work has spanned federal, state, and local levels in these areas, her main focus in recent years has centered on systemic improvement at the district level. She is founder and chair of the California Collaborative on District Reform, which for thirteen years has joined researchers, district leaders, state policy makers, advocates, and funders in an ongoing, evidencebased dialogue and collective action to improve instruction and student learning for all students in California's urban school systems. Throughout her career, Dr. O'Day has had a strong commitment to equity, with particular emphasis on serving the needs of the large and diverse population of English learners in the nation's schools.
Marshall S. (Mike) Smith has been an associate professor at HGSE, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, and a professor and Dean of the School of Education at Stanford. In his early years at Harvard, he coauthored a book on the computer analysis of text, researched the effect of Head Start, and coauthored a book in inequality in America. At Wisconsin, much of his writing focused on effective schools and districts. At Stanford, with O'Day, this work expanded into the study of systemic standards-based reform and issues of quality and equity. In between university jobs, he served in five federal administrations, including roles as the Chief of Staff to the first Secretary of Education, the Under-Secretary of Education for seven years and the Acting Deputy Secretary for three and a half years in the Clinton administration and as a senior counselor to the Secretary in the Obama administration. Between the Clinton and Obama administrations, he joined the Hewlett Foundation as the Director of the Education Program where, among other issues of interest, his team funded the nurturing and going to scale of Open Education Resources. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a National Associate of the National Research Council. He is on the board of various NGOs related to education and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
