Educational scholar and policy advisor Linda Darling-Hammond named to The Wallace Foundation board of directors

NEW YORK, July 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Wallace Foundation has announced that Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the nation's leading scholars in education and leader of President Obama's education policy transition team, has joined the Foundation's Board of Directors.

Kevin Kennedy, chairman of Wallace's Board of Directors, said: "We're delighted Linda can contribute to our already vigorous board discussions about how The Wallace Foundation can be most effective in using our resources to help create better learning opportunities for all children, especially those most in need." "The Wallace Foundation has a strong track record of improving people's lives through education, in and out of school, and the arts," said Darling-Hammond. "I have a deep respect for the foundation's work in documenting innovative and effective practices in education through high-quality research, and on sharing that knowledge widely. I am honored to be a member of this esteemed board and look forward to helping further the foundation's excellent work."

"Linda's work on such issues as teaching quality and principal training has demonstrated how research can influence both policy and practice in public education," said M. Christine DeVita, president of The Wallace Foundation. "Her advice and counsel will be invaluable as we work with our partners to develop and encourage the use of effective ideas and practices that can improve learning for children both in and out of school." Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network. She has also served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school restructuring, teacher and principal preparation and quality, and educational equity.

From 1994 to 2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching and teacher education. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education. Simultaneously, Darling-Hammond was named by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center as one of the nation's 10 most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade, the only full-time academic listed.

Among Darling-Hammond's more than 300 publications are "Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and be Able to Do" (with John Bransford, for the National Academy of Education, winner of the Pomeroy Award from AACTE); the Wallace-supported report "Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs in 2007"; "Teaching as the Learning Profession: A Handbook of Policy and Practice" (Jossey-Bass: 1999) (co-edited with Gary Sykes), which received the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000; "The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Schools that Work," recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998. Prior to joining Stanford, she held positions at the RAND Corporation, directing its education policy program, and at Teachers College. She received her Ed.D. in urban education with Highest Distinction from Temple University in 1978, and her B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University in 1973.