It’s been a year since our founder David Conley transitioned from his role as CEO of EPIC, but he’s still a visionary leader for much of our work. His newest endeavor is EdImagine, an educational strategy consulting company. Its website is a great source for keeping up to date with Dr. Conley’s work.
Check out his recent posts on college and career readiness:
What Do We Know About Readiness for College and Careers? This post is a great summary of Dr. Conley’s perspective on defining college and career readiness, incorporating much of his research while at EPIC. He’s published a number of great papers that go into greater detail about this work, including Redefining College Readiness in 2007 and A Complete Definition of College Readiness in 2012.
Renaming Noncognitive Skills to Emphasize Success. Dr. Conley and EPIC have been exploring noncognitive skills under a variety of names for many years. This post talks a bit about why the name matters. But whatever you call them, EPIC is interested in what these skills are—see our recent publication Learning Strategies as Metacognitive Factors.
Self-Assessment: Essential to Success in School and Work. Dr. Conley’s work on self-assessment has been hugely influential on CampusReady, EPIC’s self-diagnostic tool that measures the Four Keys to College and Career Readiness. We collect self-reported data from students, teachers, counselors, and administrators, then use that information to generate both student-level and school-level reports that can be used by both school and district leaders to understand and shape strategies for increasing college readiness. Understanding the factors that influence the ways in which students (and adults) respond to self-assessment is crucial for interpreting individual student reports, and for thinking about how the information provided by the individual reports applies to the schoolwide reports.
Student Aspirations: Key to Powerful Learning. We’ve long believed that understanding student aspirations is key to preparing students for college and careers, and crucial in developing student ownership of learning. Some of our past research has shown that student aspirations relate to self-report of behaviors associated with college and career readiness.
David Conley is Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership in the College of Education at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Center for Educational Policy Research. He is the founder and president of EdImagine, an educational strategy consulting company.
Additionally, he founded and served for 12 years as CEO of the Educational Policy Improvement Center. He is currently also a Senior Fellow for Deeper Learning under the sponsorship of the Hewlett Foundation.
Dr. Conley is a national thought leader in several areas including college and career readiness, student ownership of learning, systems of assessment, and new models of educational accountability. He has conducted numerous research studies on what it takes for students to be ready to succeed in college and careers, and he writes extensively on this topic. He has published multiple articles and policy briefs as well as three books in this area, including his most recent book, Getting Ready for College, Careers, and the Common Core: What Every Educator Needs to Know.
He serves on numerous technical advisory groups and panels. He is a member of the Smarter Balanced Technical Advisory Committee and the Smarter Balanced Achievement Level Setting Advisory Panel. Previously, he cochaired the Validation Committee for the Common Core State Standards.
Before entering higher education in 1989, Dr. Conley spent 20 years in the public school system in a variety of roles including as teacher and codirector of two public alternative schools, as site and central office administrator, and as an executive in a state education agency. He received his PhD and MA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his BA from the University of California, Berkeley.
