About Us
Raising the quality of education in the United States for more people is imperative for society’s well-being. With that goal in mind, the purpose of the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings is to examine the problems of the American education system and to help delineate practical solutions. Most of the Center’s research has focused on the elementary and secondary levels, but its agenda is expanding to consider related challenges for higher education as well.
The Brown Center adheres to the strictest standards of independent, objective scholarship. At the same time, its aim is not only to reach academic audiences but to inform policymakers at all levels of government and also interested members of the public. The Center’s work draws on a broad range of disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, and history. Some of the work is not only cross-disciplinary but cross-national—comparing, for example, student achievement among countries.
The Brown Center has undertaken studies of the impact of curriculums, academic standards and accountability, testing procedures, school and class size, pedagogical technology, parental choice and vouchers, school system governance, the role of teachers’ unions, educational finance issues, achievement gaps among racial and ethnic groups, the enhancement of opportunities for gifted students, the challenges facing non-English speaking youngsters and students with special needs, and other distinctive problems of urban school districts. Future research may explore the increasingly important interface between difficulties in elementary and secondary education and those of colleges and universities—for example, the growing costs of playing a remedial role. A basic consideration underlies most of these concerns: the Brown Center seeks to better our understanding of how educational performance relates both to the nation’s civic health and the strength of the American economy—the productivity and living standards of its workers, and its “competitiveness” amid global economic pressures.