About our Work

The Center for Evidence-Based Education (CEBE) employs the evidence of inquiry, research, and ideas to assist school systems and schools in their efforts to promote innovation, transform performance, and sustain improvement. It has a particular interest in practice-based evidence. It focuses on learning – the learning of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as of organizations, networks, and systems. With its Strategic Inquiry Initiative, CEBE demonstrates its firm commitment to inquiry, through which it maximizes, networks, and develops the expertise of the school systems and schools with which it works. It is committed to assisting school systems and schools develop breakthrough practice: practice that enables them to break through from where they are to where they need to be. In this, it draws upon strategies that support school systems and schools in working on the detail of practice.

One of the Center’s primary concerns is with the standards and quality of teaching and learning, and how these can be transformed to ensure that all students, especially those living in historically disadvantaged communities, can achieve at high standards. To this end, it pays particular attention to the capital (intellectual, organizational, and social) upon which school systems and schools draw; to leadership, especially “Leadership for Learning,” and to the development of “leaderful communities” – communities in which leadership is a strength of the whole community, and in which a high priority is given to developing leaders, and leadership. CEBE’s leadership work is grounded in a set of principles –the Leadership for Learning Principles – that were developed by the international Carpe Vitam: Leadership for Learning Initiative, in which the Center participated between 2002-2005.

Through a set of strategic partnerships, both national and international, CEBE involves the school systems and schools with which it works in leading edge thinking and practice. Through regional partnerships, it designs innovative initiatives to support practitioners, especially those in leadership roles, and those working in teams, to transform learning.

CEBE’s initiatives are customized to respond to the unique needs of individual schools and districts. They include:

• Strategic Inquiry – enables schools to identify strengths and challenges in the areas of teaching and learning, leadership for learning and culture for learning to achieve sustainable improvement
• Classroom Assessment Practices and Strategies (CAPS) – facilitates teams of administrators and teachers in developing coherent assessment systems and in implementing sound classroom assessment practices
• Leadership for Learning – builds the leadership capacity of individuals and teams using a set of internationally developed benchmark principles
• Leading Teams, Leading Transformation (LT²) – develops the leadership capacity of individuals and teams to achieve sustainable school improvement