The Rennie Center's mission is to develop a public agenda that promotes significant improvement of public education in Massachusetts. We envision an education system that educates every child to be successful in life, citizenship, employment and life-long learning. The Rennie Center offers educators and policy makers a "safe place" to consider evidence and perspectives, discuss issues and develop new approaches to their work. We seek to foster thoughtful public discourse and informed policy making through non-partisan, independent research, civic engagement, and effective action.

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The Challenges We Address
The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy was launched as a division of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC) in October 2002. In the summer of 2005, the Rennie Center became an independent non-profit organization committed to addressing the critical challenges of reforming education in Massachusetts. The Rennie Center is positioned to address clear deficits in:
 
Independent Research
Despite its national leadership in standards-based reform and enormous reform expenditures, Massachusetts has failed to invest in an independent research initiative to study the effectiveness of its education policies. To make effective decisions, policy makers desperately need this unbiased, thorough research and analysis.
 
Public Discourse
An acrimonious climate and sharp polarization on education reform issues have led to alienation between policy makers and practitioners. We lack a constructive discourse on policy strategies for the improvement of education. Quality, effective policy should be shaped by well-informed public discourse and a concerted effort to find common ground.
 
An Effective Public Agenda
Lacking evidence and a climate for constructive dialogue, the Commonwealth has been unable to shape an effective agenda for the improvement of public education. An effective public agenda can be best shaped by applying independent research, creating opportunities for civil discourse and making a concerted effort to inform and include policy makers, the public and the field in the process.

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Our Work
The Center is committed to a set of strategies that involve collaborating with diverse organizations in the education reform field to pursue the following activities:
 
Independent Research
The Rennie Center produces independent research initiatives to promote public discourse on educational improvement and to inform policy discussions of key decision makers and opinion leaders. Our research reports and policy briefs are broadly disseminated to policy stakeholders in the public, private, nonprofit, and media sectors.
 
Civic Engagement
The Rennie Center is committed to engaging diverse perspectives and voices in a constructive policy discussion. By convening conferences, forums, meetings, policy briefings, panel discussions, town meetings and other events, we promote constructive dialogue on school improvement and student achievement. Through this work, the Rennie Center seeks to minimize polarized, partisan communication and to promote an invigorated, inclusive policy debate with diverse stakeholder participation.
 
Shaping an Effective Public Agenda
An effective policy agenda can be best shaped by applying independent research, creating opportunities for civil discourse and making a concerted effort to inform and engage policymakers, the public and the field in the process. The Rennie Center is dedicated to widely disseminating its independent research to enrich the policy conversation. We introduce our work into the field through convening, publications, journalism and Internet outreach.
 
Constructive Activism
Committed to forwarding the education policy agenda through constructive activism, the Rennie Center proactively identifies timely opportunities for change in which it can lead policy discussion and development process to a new level. This type of activity includes follow-up research on issues raised during events, formation of representative working groups to draft policy proposals or meet outstanding policy challenges, extensive field work on major challenges, and concerted media outreach efforts to highlight critical, but neglected issues.

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Our Focus
The Rennie Center focuses its research and convening efforts on policy areas that require independent research and civil discourse to inform policy decisions. We provide the additional attention needed to push issues to the forefront of the decision-making process. Our ongoing work focuses on:

• Teaching workforce
 
• High school reform
 
• Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM)

• Progressive labor-management relations
 
• Governance issues
 
• School choice & charter schools
 
• Special student populations

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Our Impact
The Rennie Center seeks to foster thoughtful public discourse and informed policy making through non-partisan, independent research and constructive dialogue on key education reform issues. We strive for immediate impact, while recognizing that affecting lasting changes to the education system takes time. The following are a few examples of the impact of our various types of research and convenings over the past several years.

• The Rennie Center’s policy brief Raise the Age, Lower the Dropout Rate? Considerations for Policymakers is the first publication of its kind to critically review empirical evidence on the impact of state policies to raise the age of compulsory school attendance. The Rennie Center’s report revealed no evidence to support the idea that raising the compulsory age to 18 decreases dropout rates and increases graduation rates. This finding fundamentally changed the discourse across Massachusetts about the rationale for such a policy change. As the Rennie Center recommended, policymakers now discuss raising the compulsory age as part of a broader strategy rather than a “silver bullet,” and describe it not as a guaranteed way to reduce the dropout rate, but as a valuable message that conveys to students the importance of remaining in school.
   
• The Rennie Center provided the first opportunity for the public to communicate with the Secretary of Education and other members of the state’s Child and Youth Readiness Cabinet about their work and goals for the future. Models highlighted in the Rennie Center’s policy brief on the role of Children’s Cabinets, released at that public forum, are expected to appear in the Cabinet’s forthcoming report.
   
• The Rennie Center hosted the only public forum in which key stakeholders were able to comment on and discuss the results of the Massachusetts Teaching, Learning and Leading Survey (TeLLS), a statewide survey that documented educators’ views about the conditions in schools. The Rennie Center event and the research presented there furthered the conversation on successful labor-management collaboration.
   
• The Department of Higher Education developed a pilot Professional Development Program for high school teachers, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is recommending the addition of two new courses based on recommendations from the Rennie Center’s report, Alternative High School Math Pathways in Massachusetts: Developing an On-Ramp to Minimize College Remediation in Mathematics.
   
• The Rennie Center, with support from groups including the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, urged the state to move toward a value-added approach to accountability in 2004. Today, the Growth Model for student performance, which has been launched across the state, ensures that relevant data are collected and that they are linked to demographic information as the Rennie Center’s policy brief suggested.
   
• Seeking Effective Policies and Practices for English Language Learners is the most requested of all Rennie Center publications – thousands of copies have been distributed or downloaded. This was the first report to share successful practices that could be used as models for districts struggling with a new law requiring a switch from the regular use of students’ native languages to immersion in English. The report has been used as the basis for professional development for teachers and administrators by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as well as a number of urban districts.