Hoover Education Success Initiative

The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.

Since passage in 2015 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states have again taken charge of American education policy. That means their leaders must possess the vision, wisdom, and capacity to make the most of opportunities to better serve their students, parents, educators, and taxpayers. To support them in this ambitious undertaking, the Hoover Education Success Initiative provides policy recommendations in vital realms of K-12 schooling, grounded in expert analysis of what works.

Launched in 2019, HESI is a “solutions tank” led by senior scholars at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Its work incorporates the best available policy evidence as compiled by panels of research leaders in specific topical areas. The policy briefings are scrutinized and honed in consultation with the HESI Practitioner Council, a group of leading state policy makers and educational reform advocates.

HESI is not restricted to any specific policy areas but looks to inform states about a range of key topics of importance across the country. Examples demonstrating this can be seen in the major papers currently available:

• The Unavoidable: Tomorrow’s Teacher Compensation
• The Diploma Dilemma
• School Accountability: Past, Present, and Future
• Toward Equitable School Choice

Thirteen contributing essays by leading expert authors were vital in informing the creation of these four major briefings. 

HESI continues to host research paper workshops and policy symposia on these and other timely K–12 issues, including policy challenges for state leaders that have arisen as a result of the global pandemic and the local school shutdowns that it precipitated across many parts of the country.

The initiative continues to strive to ensure that its research supports needed changes in education policy and practice at the state level. The central goal of HESI is to contribute directly to the ongoing reinvention of the nation’s education landscape and ultimately to drive enhanced outcomes for American children.

A significant gift for the support of this initiative is acknowledged from The Koret Foundation.

The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.

© 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.