The State Imperative: Education R&D as a Catalyst for Continuous Improvement and Transformation

There is a vital opportunity in education to drive innovation by using research and development to identify, test, and scale solutions to enhance learner outcomes. While momentum grows at the federal level, states should leverage education R&D as a bipartisan approach to making system-wide improvements for students.  

To explore how to make this happen, Education Reimagined and Transcend, in partnership with the Alliance for Learning Innovation, gathered diverse perspectives across education about the barriers and opportunities for state-level R&D investment and infrastructure. Our goal was to identify bright spots across the country, surface creative ideas, and turn insights into actionable state-level policy recommendations.

Our resulting brief, Seizing the Opportunity for State Education R&D: Findings and Recommendations for Action, reflects 60 interviews and surveys with local and state education leaders from 15 states as well as staff from foundations, advocacy organizations, and higher education institutions. 

Our research surfaced several key themes:

1. When states establish a strategic vision and goals to reimagine education, a clear roadmap for innovation emerges. Examples emerged of states co-creating clear strategic visions and goals in partnership with community stakeholders. However, states do not often define or connect their strategies for research, development, and innovation. Many states provide flexibility for innovation without articulating their vision for education, leaving communities unclear about priorities. This can result in divided attention, resource strain, and fragmented implementation.

2. Sufficient resource allocation is essential to enable education R&D. States can play a critical role in ensuring dedicated resources exist for education R&D, including funding, human capacity, and technical support. However, this priority is rarely reflected in state budgets or organizational charts. The urgency of daily operations often crowds out capacity for developing novel solutions, while episodic funding limits potential for longer-term, sustainable research projects.

3. Mindset and culture shifts are required for sustainable innovation efforts. State education agencies have historically been compliance organizations, not empowered to help leaders and practitioners creatively solve urgent problems. Creating a climate open to R&D requires a fundamental shift in how educational change is viewed and supported.

4. Education leaders require time, authority, and support to innovate. The current system requires hoop-jumping of any school or system interested in R&D-driven innovation. While mechanisms like charter schools and innovation zones provide some autonomy, innovations still face constraints within the current paradigm. Without clear guidelines for policy exemptions—or when these flexibilities seem too burdensome —the desire to reimagine education remains low.

5. Research, design, development, and evaluation processes should align with community context and needs. Education R&D is often disconnected from community needs, assets, and challenges, with evidence rarely provided in timely, digestible, or actionable ways. Research inquiry and evidence are frequently designed for researchers to understand program impact rather than to help practitioners improve.

6. Strong relationships drive the successful development and implementation of research and solutions. In an evolving context where young people often don't feel connected to or engaged at school, the source of trust and engagement comes from depth and quality of relationships. State education agencies can engage in co-creation with communities to generate shared accountability and sustainability in change efforts. Policies and initiatives put in place without strong cross-sector relationships miss opportunities to broaden impact.

Recommendations for States 

From these key themes and ideas, we lay out eight actionable recommendations across two mechanisms: the conditions to incentivize and foster innovation and the infrastructure to support, evaluate, embed, and sustain it.

Conditions 

1. Establish a state vision and goals that prioritize innovation and continuous improvement. States must develop comprehensive visions that explicitly prioritize innovation and continuous improvement in education, serving as a north star for all R&D efforts.
   

2. Establish a dedicated office to oversee and drive state education R&D. Whether housed within a state education agency or a partner organization such as a university or non-profit, SEAs need dedicated space and capacity to improve and reimagine education while fulfilling their legal and historical functions.
   

3. Empower local leaders to test evidence-based solutions and develop innovative models. States can take several actions to smooth or even incentivize the path to innovation, providing conditions and resources needed at district and school levels.
   

4. Identify and build needed capacity that impacts mindset and behavior change. State leaders can use their platforms to build broad, cross-sectional support for R&D infrastructure and embody the knowledge, skills, and mindsets required for educators to lead, conduct, and engage in R&D.
   

Infrastructure

5. Modernize state longitudinal data systems. Robust and reliable data are the backbone of strong R&D, requiring modernized systems that link key data across sectors serving learners and that emphasize data-informed decision-making over reporting and compliance.
   

6. Leverage tools, artificial intelligence, and technology platforms. States must prioritize making research and data more accessible and actionable for the field by integrating new technologies.
   

7. Build human capacity through partnerships, networks, and community engagement. Success requires direct engagement with educators, students, families, and communities through partnerships and communities of practice.
   

8. Provide technical support for R&D activities and continuous improvement. Even those who are predisposed to change need support to see it through. Sustained change requires dedicated resources for research partnerships, professional learning, and capacity building.
   

The path to transforming education through R&D requires intentional collaboration between state agencies, local communities, and education stakeholders. By implementing these recommendations holistically—addressing both conditions and infrastructure—states can transform systems to enable and empower community-based design and innovation. The time is now for state leaders to seize this opportunity and build robust R&D systems to drive the future of learning.

Sarah Bishop-Root Sarah Bishop-Root, Education Reimagined’s Partner for Policy Leadership, through research and stakeholder engagement, amplifies the policies and conditions that enable the advancement of innovative learner-centered approaches and system transformation. 

Leslie Colwell is Transcend’s Director of Policy, focused on elevating voices from school communities to shape policy and ecosystem conditions for innovation and school redesign.