The Rennie Center was launched in 2002 to provide an independent, non-partisan voice in policy conversations, track progress in the Massachusetts education system, and support reform through high-quality, original research. From the beginning, we have sought to shine a light on issues and student groups that have been largely overlooked by policymakers. In the Rennie Center’s first decade, researchers explored a whole host of areas primed for reform, including ways to support English Language Learners, the impact of school discipline practices, the value of alternative education, and ways to create pathways for marginalized youth. Using this research to drive policy discussions, we forged a name for ourselves as a trusted source for education decision-makers across the state.
From there, we built our cornerstone project, the Condition of Education in the Commonwealth. This began in 2013 as an annual dive into key data points, a way to track and publicly share indicators of success and areas in need of improvement in the Massachusetts education system. Over the years, the project evolved to include an annual Action Guide that offers research-informed recommendations for statewide actions—policies, investments, and expansion of best practices—that have potential to transform our education system. Our action guides have looked at the role of community partnerships in addressing learning gaps (2015), social-emotional learning (2016), student-centered learning (2017), continuous improvement (2018), the power of student voice (2019), measuring student success (2020), school-community partnerships (2021), and supporting educators through the pandemic (2022). In 2023, for the 10th anniversary of the Condition of Education project, we took a look back at effective strategies and refocused the project on creating a larger vision for the future of education. Our 2024 and 2025 action guides dive deeper into the need to rethink when, where, and how students learn. Through this project, we have grown from investigating specific issues to serving as a lead voice in setting the direction for our education system as a whole.
While the original vision for the Rennie Center was as a “think tank” focusing primarily on research and informing policy, within the first few years we began to wonder what more we could do to ensure the research we were producing was actually being put to use. The Rennie Center shifted to playing the role of “action tank” as we began working directly with districts to help implement best practices in schools. We led a number of projects, including the Massachusetts Education Partnership, which focused on facilitating labor-management collaboration; the Massachusetts Institute for College and Career Readiness, which paired researchers with schools to advance and evaluate college and career readiness programs; the Massachusetts Teaching and Learning Network, aimed at improving educator effectiveness by empowering teachers to try new practices and share their results in learning communities; and the Excellence through Social and Emotional Learning (exSEL) Network, which brought educators together around supporting the development of social and emotional skills through changes at the district, school, and classroom levels. Through these programs, we gained expertise in creating and supporting system-wide change and developed a rigorous approach to continuous improvement. We continue to support schools and districts through programs like the Systemic Student Support Academy, which helps schools shift their approach to student support from reactive to proactive. Through these programs and other initiatives we have supported more than 200 districts in Massachusetts. We’ve also worked with educators in LA, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and other major learning centers to provide expertise in Continuous Improvement and managing effective change.
Our work responds to conditions on the ground, aiming to provide timely insights into critical issues while also keeping an eye on long-term data trends and opportunities for reform. When the pandemic hit, we got to work supporting schools as they navigated virtual learning and, eventually, a return to the classroom. Our Back-to-School Blueprint offered educators an interactive series of research-based, online action guides on topics such as helping students heal from trauma, rebuilding community, accessing grade-level content, and reengaging students. We co-founded the EdImpact Research Consortium to help districts determine how to spend the massive influx of federal COVID recovery funds while analyzing the impact of that spending. And we teamed up with partners in the mental health field to launch Thriving Minds, a project aimed at helping schools build comprehensive mental health systems. Finally, we led Open Opportunity MA, a coalition of more than 40 organizations aimed at transforming our education system by tearing down the barriers that segregate students and their families by race and class. This effort led to the creation of Campus Without Walls, a program that allows students in one community to learn from an expert teacher across the city, or even across the state.
Today, we continue to use our expertise to support practitioners and policymakers. Our recent research looks at critical topics such as Early College efforts, STEM Pathways, gender and racial disparities in education leadership, and supporting unhoused students. From testifying on Beacon Hill to bringing together legislators and teachers to discuss the future of our education system, our role as an independent, research-driven organization has never been more important. As we look to the future, we hope to help Massachusetts shape a vision for education that rethinks the status quo in order to meet the needs of today’s students.
The Rennie Center was founded by former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville and is named in memory of John C. (Jack) Rennie, whose consensus-building approach to public policy challenges, belief in the power of a respectful civic dialogue, and passionate commitment to our youngest generation remain the guiding spirit of our work today.