Welcome to the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU), a national research and development center at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College.

NCSU’S work focuses on creating effective high schools, where our nation has made only moderate gains over the past two decades and significant gaps exist in achievement, graduation, and college access for particular subgroups of students.

The purpose of NCSU is to develop, implement, and test new processes to scale up effective practices in high schools that districts will be able to use within the context of their own goals and unique circumstances. While a consensus is emerging around the “essential components” of successful schooling from years of prior research, far less is known about the ways in which educators develop, implement, integrate, and sustain these components. Through the work of NCSU, we seek to identify the bundles of policies and practices that effective schools use to orchestrate the essential components into successful outcomes for all students.

NCSU has a nationally-recognized team that is composed of scholars, education support providers, and district collaborators. Among our multi-disciplinary team, we have experts in school improvement, value-added measures, high school course taking patterns, leadership, teacher quality, school organization and instructional conditions, survey development, professional development, and technical assistance strategies. Our district collaborators provide local expertise to ensure our work is consistent with local context and goals.

NCSU has an ambitious and exciting research agenda. We invite you to learn more about NCSU through our website.

Marisa Cannata

Director
National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools