Resource Title:
2010: Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond founded and co-directs the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education to foster research, policy, and practice strategies for educational quality and equality. She also founded and oversees the School Redesign Network, which works on issues of school and district reform, and leadership development in support of powerful and equitable curriculum, instruction and assessment. Between 1994 and 2001, Darling-Hammond served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, chaired by former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt. The blue-ribbon panel’s 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching and schooling. Darling-Hammond began her career as a public school teacher and has since dedicated her professional life to improving educational policy at the national, state and local level. Beginning with her work as senior social scientist and director of the RAND Corporation’s education policy program, and extending through appointments at Columbia’s Teachers College and Stanford, she has conducted research on a wide range of policy issues affecting teaching and schooling while advising policymakers at all levels of government. She led President Obama’s education policy transition team in 2008-09. Darling-Hammond received her B.A. (magna cum laude) from Yale University and her doctorate in Urban Education (with highest distinction) from Temple University. She is the author or editor of 16 books and more than 300 journal articles, book chapters and monographs on issues of policy and practice.