Timeline

1936

Disciplinary research focus

Historian of education Isaac James Quillen joins the faculty. As dean starting in 1954, he will bring world-caliber social scientists to the School of Education and raise its reputation for research.

1943

Hanna in Washington

Hanna becomes Stanford’s Director of University Services. He employs his bent for rainmaking to negotiate for Stanford federal contracts for wartime training. His Washington experience sparks his interest in postwar international development, which in turn helps shift the focus of the school toward global concerns.

1945

Professional eminence

Prof. Alvin C. Eurich, an educational psychologist, is elected president of the American Educational Research Association. He’s the first of eight scholars to serve in this role while at Stanford. They include Nathaniel Gage, Lee Cronbach, Patrick Suppes, Lee Shulman, Larry Cuban, Elliot Eisner and most recently Arnetha Ball.

1946

With growing global role, more funding

Eurich helps found the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), a powerful magnet for research dollars that is divested from the university in the 1970s amid concerns over its classified defense work. In 1948, he serves as acting university president after the sudden death of Donald Tresidder. 

Hear Eurich's oral history, conducted by the Stanford Historical Society. 

1954

Steeples of excellence

Quillen becomes dean. In line with University President Wallace Sterling’s aim to build “steeples of excellence” in a world-class research university, he hires eminent discipline-based scholars and emphasizes social-science inquiry.

1963

CERAS is conceived

Quillen begins discussion on a national education research center at Stanford, the future CERAS.

1966

'Scholar-doers' for international development education: SIDEC

Prof. Paul Hanna founds the Stanford International Development Education Center (SIDEC) to study education as an aid to economic, political and social progress in developing countries. 

SIDEC and its successor master’s and doctoral programs in International Comparative Education (ICE) count among their alumni past presidents of Peru, the Maldives and Guatemala; the adviser of the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico City; and ministers of education in Tanzania and Kenya as well as policy makers, researchers and education professors across the globe.

1966

Policy and research

H. Thomas James becomes dean. He furthers the school’s reputation in advanced training and social-science research, and his close connections with Stanford administration help secure its standing and funding within the broader university.

With such hires as Michael Kirst, a Washington policy analyst who later leads the California Board of Education, James adds a focus on policy that distinguishes the school today.

Hear Kirst's oral history, conducted by the Stanford Historical Society.

1970

Challenge and change

Arthur Coladarci becomes dean amid a time of declining enrollment and budget cuts. 

Well-liked by senior faculty though feared by students for his rigor, he begins steps to diversify the school’s faculty and student body. 

1974

Women's studies pioneer

Labor economist Prof. Myra Strober, founder of Stanford’s Center for Research on Women, is tenured by the School of Education. Strober's research and leadership yields new understanding of women's contributions to economic productivity and to the greater good. 

Hear Strober's oral history conducted by the Stanford Historical Society. 

Read her thoughts on work-family balance in her speech at the GSE's 2017 Commencement.

1979

Focus on practice

Prof. Myron Atkin becomes dean. After nearly two decades of leadership that emphasized strong research, Atkin will reconnect the school and its faculty to educational practice.

1983

Schools hit the news

After public outcry over “A Nation at Risk,” a federal report lamenting the state of U.S. education, University President Donald Kennedy joins other education leaders in pledging his institution’s resources toward improving public schools. 

Kennedy and Atkin follow through with Stanford and the Schools, a three-year, $1.1 million study of local K-12 districts that the School of Education publishes in 1987.

1986

Policy leader

Marshall S. Smith becomes dean. He diversifies the faculty and student body, ties their research more firmly to practice by involving the school in policymaking, and forges bonds within Stanford that protect the school during budget cuts. 

In 1990, Smith and Jennifer O'Day write a paper setting out the structure and arguments for standards-based education reform, an interest of then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. 

Smith leaves Stanford in 1993 to become President Clinton’s undersecretary of education. The research informs the education legislation that Clinton sends to Congress, where it passes in 1994.

1994

Anticipating tech’s future

Richard Shavelson becomes dean. On his watch, the school creates a Learning Design and Technology master’s program, enhances its teacher education program to address 21st-century challenges, and compiles a strong record of securing external funding.

1998

Crusader for equity

Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond comes to Stanford. She burnishes the School of Education’s reputation as a policy leader by mapping America’s growing educational inequity and outlining paths to reform. Her 2010 book The Flat World and Education wins the Grawemeyer Prize.

2001

Balancing research and practice: The Stipek era

Prof. Deborah Stipek becomes dean. An expert on motivational theory, Stipek embodies the school’s balance between social science, theory and practice.

She fosters collaborations with K-12 schools that further the School of Education’s goal of improving teaching and learning for all people. 

2007

Assessment hailed

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing unanimously approves the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), a Stanford-led, innovative model that evaluates teacher classroom performance.

2011

Forging a digital future

Social psychologist Prof. Claude Steele, a member of the Stanford faculty from 1991 to 2009, becomes dean. He creates faculty positions to enhance education for underserved children and advance the use and development of new technologies. 

Steele launches the initiatives Education’s Digital Future and the Workshop on Poverty, Inequality and Education, and he paves the way for education faculty and students to pursue leadership and research in online learning.

2014

Promoting early math

To encourage research into preschool math acquisition, increasingly seen as a powerful predictor of later learning, Prof. Deborah Stipek and others launch the DREME (Development and Research in Early Math Education) Network.

2014

Stipek returns as dean

Steele leaves to become provost of UC Berkeley. Stipek takes the reins while Stanford prepares a search for a new dean.

2015

Training entrepreneurial leaders

The first Executive Program for Education Leaders, latest in several joint ventures of the GSE and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, helps superintendents develop entrepreneurial leadership skills.

2015

Schwartz becomes dean

Daniel Schwartz, the Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Educational Technology and the GSE's Teacher of the Year for 2015, becomes dean. 

He aims to enhance the school’s capacity in research, theory and practice toward children most at risk of lacking access to learning.