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The improvement of teaching and learning is central to all of the Foundation’s work. As we bring together researchers, teachers, policymakers and members of organizations with common interests in education, we work to invent new knowledge and to develop tools and ideas that allow us to foster positive change and enhanced learning in our nation’s schools.
In our first several decades, influential Foundation achievements included the landmark “Flexner Report” on medical education, the development of the Graduate Record Examination, the founding of the Educational Testing Service, and the creation of the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association of America (TIAA-CREF). The Foundation also established the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and was a leader in the effort to provide federal aid for higher education, including Pell Grants, which assist low- and middle-income students.
In 1997, the Foundation moved from Princeton, N.J., to the San Francisco Bay area. In 2004, the Foundation built on Stanford University land near the campus.
More recently, the Foundation’s work focused on moral, civic and political education; preparation for the professions (law, engineering, clergy, medicine and nursing); reform of the Ph.D.; and field-building work with teachers at all levels to develop new models for documenting classroom practice in ways that other educators can study, adapt and implement. The Foundation continues to work with community colleges to improve basic skills education in that sector.
Today, the Foundation, using both technology and face-to-face communication, is closely examining how new technological tools and digital world social networking can contribute to learning at every level of the education spectrum. Working through arrangements with public education, universities, the commercial sector—and the connections among these enterprises—the Foundation seeks to transform how we develop and support school professionals; the tools, materials, ideas and evidence with which they work; and the instructional opportunities that we afford students for learning.
Governed by a board of trustees, the Foundation is led by its ninth president, Anthony S. Bryk.
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