Improvement in Action

Anthony S. Bryk is the ninth president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he is leading work on transforming educational research and development, more closely joining researchers and practitioners to improve teaching and learning. From 2004 until 2008, he held the Spencer Chair in Organizational Studies in the School of Education and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He came to Stanford from the University of Chicago, where he was the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the sociology department and where he helped found the Center for Urban School Improvement and the Consortium on Chicago School Research. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bryk is one of America’s most noted educational researchers. His 1993 book, Catholic Schools and the Common Good, is a classic in the sociology of education. His deep interest in bringing scholarship to bear on improving schooling is reflected in his later volumes Trust in Schools (2002) and Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago (2010). In Learning to Improve (2015), Bryk argues that improvement science combined with the power of networks offers the field a new approach to reach ever-increasing educational aspirations.