Remaking the Education R&D Ecosystem
Moving from Compliance to Impact. Remaking the Federal Education R&D Ecosystem.
The traditional educational research pipeline is too slow, too siloed, and too disconnected from the classroom. At InnovateEDU, we are bridging the gap between federal policy and local practice. Alongside the Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI), we are leading the national effort to build an action-oriented, results-driven R&D infrastructure—delivering practical, open-source tools that empower educators and drive real-world student outcomes.
The Vision: A Demand-Side Evidence Revolution
“We don’t need more academic papers sitting on a shelf. We need actionable tools in the field.”
The future of education reform depends on our ability to answer one core question: What works for whom, when, and under what conditions? Through our leadership of the Future of Federal Education R&D Taskforce (convened by ALI, InnovateEDU, and the Learning Systems Leadership Network), we are advocating for a modernized federal role that moves beyond rigid checkbox compliance and toward rapid, agile, and equitable innovation.
Strategic Initiatives driving Systemic Change
Remaking the Federal R&D Infrastructure (ALI)
As a founding leader of the Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI), we are proud to be part of a bipartisan coalition of over 90 organizations to shift the federal focus toward the "D" in R&D. Our work centers on:
The Federal R&D Blueprint with EdCounsel's LSLN and ALI: Providing a clear, actionable roadmap for federal policymakers to fund rapid-cycle testing, support state-level longitudinal data systems, and scale breakthrough classroom innovations.
Transforming Federal Systems: Advocating for modernization across federal agencies to ensure public research dollars fund practical, classroom-ready solutions rather than slow-moving academic theory.
The Five EdTech Quality Indicators (FEQI)
To ease the overwhelming burden on school districts, we collaborated with leading national organizations to establish the Five EdTech Quality Indicators. This framework provides a unified, expert-validated standard for evaluating classroom tools:
Safe: Prioritizing data minimization, clear privacy transparency, and robust security.
Evidence-Based: Grounded in rigorous research and aligned with ESSA Tiers of Evidence.
Inclusive: Engineered with accessibility and universal design to serve every learner.
Usable: Designed to minimize cognitive load and seamlessly support instructional workflows.
Interoperable: Securely communicating across existing school platforms to unlock actionable insights.
Practical, Open-Source Tools for the Field
We don’t just write policy briefs—we build the plumbing that makes modern education work. We develop and distribute free, open-source infrastructure tools to help school systems and developers adopt modern standards immediately: