By Amy Yuen

Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford, has been named the 2010 recipient of the Brock International Prize in Education. The prize is given annually to an individual who has made a specific innovation or contribution to the science and art of education, resulting in a significant impact on the practice or understanding of education.

Darling-Hammond was honored for her lifelong dedication to the pursuit of excellence and equity for all children, and for her focus on effective instruction, which has sparked important conversations about what it takes to reform education. She was chosen by a panel of nine jurors, including educators and champions of education, university officers, professors, and business and government officials. Given by the Brock Community Foundation, the Brock International Prize in Education consists of $40,000, a certificate, and a sculpted bust of Sequoyah, the Cherokee inventor of syllabary. Darling-Hammond will receive the award at a public ceremony during the Brock Symposium on Excellence in Education at the University of Oklahoma on April 8.

Throughout her career, Darling-Hammond has focused on redesigning schools to improve learning, improving teacher quality and promoting educational equity. Her tireless public service contributions have made an impact both locally and nationally. Nationally, Darling-Hammond's public service work has included serving recently as head of President Obama's transition team on education policy and, from 1994-2001, as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, which produced the 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, that led to widespread changes in teaching policy. She is founder and co-director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network.

Among her numerous projects locally, Darling-Hammond helped found East Palo Alto Academy, a public charter school. Since its first graduating class in 2005, the high school has averaged a 90-percent graduation and college entrance rate unheard of for its area. Darling-Hammond plans to donate her $40,000 Brock Prize gift to the academy.

Recent Brock International Prize recipients include Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone; Lawrence Lezotte, CEO and national education consultant of Effective Schools Productions; and, Richard J. Marzano, senior scholar of Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. Past award recipients from the Stanford School of Education include Professor Emeritus Elliot W. Eisner, who won the prize in 2004, and 2003 winner David C. Berliner (PhD ’68), Regents Professor of Education at Arizona State University.