Katrina Woodworth

Katrina Woodworth, Ed.D., is a senior researcher in SRI’s Center for Education Policy. She has a long record of research on K–12 school improvement efforts and more than 10 years of experience leading large mixed-methods research studies.

Woodworth specializes in evaluating efforts to ensure teacher quality and improve educational outcomes for underserved students. Three ongoing studies related to teacher quality are a project she is leading for the U.S. Department of Education that examines state efforts to ensure support for teachers’ implementation of the Common Core State Standards, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessing the implementation and impact of the National Writing Project’s intensive inservice professional development, and an examination of the teacher development system in California that focuses on the transition to the Common Core standards.

Current and recently completed studies of efforts to raise the achievement of underserved students include an evaluation of a pilot program in the Oakland Unified School District intended to support personalized blended learning (by integrating face-to-face instruction with online learning), a mixed-methods evaluation of the implementation and impact of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) model in five San Francisco Bay Area schools, case studies of efforts to expand underserved students’ access to the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, and an RCT on the effects of online learning as a strategy to extend learning time at Rocketship Education’s charter schools.

Woodworth has also conducted large-scale inventories of policies and practice, including a Hewlett Foundation-supported study of the status of arts education in California that culminated in a suite of reports entitled An Unfinished Canvas and a Bechtel Foundation-supported study on the status of science education in California.

Across these studies, Woodworth has repeatedly overseen the analysis of extant data (including student achievement data), developed and analyzed surveys, led case study work, and integrated qualitative and quantitative findings to communicate complex information to policy audiences.

Woodworth holds doctoral and master’s degrees in education from Harvard University.