Who We Are
NCREST works with educators, policymakers, community groups and other organizations to improve schools and transform education systems. Founded in 1990 by Linda Darling-Hammond and Ann Lieberman, Director Thomas Hatch leads NCREST’s current efforts help all those engaged in education to reimagine, create, and sustain more powerful and equitable learning environments. NCREST is affiliated with the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University.
What We Do
NCREST carries out research and development projects that address the fundamental changes in learning, teaching, curriculum, assessment, parent and community engagement, and administration that comprehensive school improvement demands. As part of the work, NCREST produces a wide range of publications and images of practice that can be used to fuel educational reform efforts and support professional learning. NCREST also shares news and research on educational change around the world via International Education News.
Featured Publication
In a forthcoming chapter for the Third International Handbook of Educational Change Thomas Hatch and Jonathan Beltran Alvarado describe how education leaders can create the conditions in schools to promote more student-centered learning, foster a wider range of abilities, and support students’ overall wellbeing.
Featured Projects
The Latest from International Education News
What's new, what's good, and what's effective in education around the world
“AI is a tool that should help us, not something to depend on”: An Interview with Roselyn Baronia on her experiences with AI, Assessment, and a New Oral Defense (Part 2)
With concerns that AI was undermining her students’ critical thinking, Roselyn Baronia didn’t ban it — she redesigned her assessment around it. In the second installment of this three-part interview, Baronia discusses the oral defense she created for a coding … Continue reading
“I Felt Like I Was Losing My Role in the Classroom”: An Interview with Roselyn Baronia on her experiences with AI, Assessment, and a New Oral Defense (Part 1)
What do you do when virtually every activity you ask students to complete can be carried out almost entirely by AI? That’s the challenge Roselyn Baronia faces as she tries to help her students learn to code in AP Computer … Continue reading
Broadening the Approach to Assessing Educational Change: Lead the Change Interview with Dr. Jose Eos Trinidad
In September’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview, Dr. Jose Eos Trinidad argues that understanding educational change requires a broader understanding of how learning, development, and transformation occur across broader spaces. Dr. Trinidad is an Assistant Professor at the University of … Continue reading
Highs in the East, Lows in the West, and Concerns All Around: Scanning the Education Headlines for the 2025 PISA results
This week, Thomas Hatch and Anushka Banerjee pull together some of the headlines discussing the release of the 2025 PISA tests in reading, math and science, For IEN’s coverege of other OECD reports on education tests, see: Scanning the headlines … Continue reading
Challenges, Policies, and Politics in the New School Year in the US: Going back to school in a divided world in 2026 (Part 2)
Questions about funding, supplies, safety, numerous policy changes, and the growing backlash leading to bans on AI and cellphones are among the many local and national issues in the news as students go back to school in the US. Last … Continue reading