Future Focused, Now Inspired
Education Policy
You’re working to build an education system that prepares learners for the future—we’re here to help. NCEE partners with policymakers like you to design forward-thinking policies, help them gain public support, navigate implementation challenges, and ensure that they adapt to an evolving world.
Future Focused, Now Inspired
Education Policy
You’re working to build an education system that prepares learners for the future—we’re here to help. NCEE partners with policymakers like you to design forward-thinking policies, help them gain public support, navigate implementation challenges, and ensure that they adapt to an evolving world.
Education Policy for
a changing world
Education policymakers know that the world has changed for today’s students. The job landscape is radically different due to technological advancements and automation. Today’s youngest learners will never know a world without artificial intelligence (AI)—arguably one of the most consequential developments in recent human history.
Forward-thinking education policymakers are dedicated to ensuring that learners graduate future-ready. Achieving this requires that they craft policies that transform education systems for a changing future.
NCEE’s expert team of policy analysts, designers, and thought partners offers decades of experience in a unique approach to transforming education systems to face the future. Policymakers and national policy thought leaders turn to NCEE for help developing innovative policy designs. They rely on NCEE’s strategic, political, and communications know-how to help craft and pass policies that earn strong public support, sustain through implementation challenges, and adapt to changing futures.
What We Do
We support numerous state and national policy collaboratives to: set future-facing visions for education, advance bold new policy designs, see landmark bills reach passage, and construct comprehensive roadmaps and implementation plans.
Our approach combines deep expertise in:
Strategic planning
Futures thinking and foresight
Political consulting
Learning design for policymakers
Facilitation
Policy analysis and development
Stakeholder engagement
Implementation planning
Who We Work With
- State and national Blue Ribbon Commissions
- Task Forces
- Governors’ Offices
- Standing and interim legislative committees
- Funder collaboratives
- Collaboratives of like-minded policy organizations
What Sets Our Policy Work Apart
How is working with NCEE different from other education policy organizations?
State or national education policymaker or policy influencers come to us because they are is interested in:
Learning from lessons globally, not just locally
NCEE inspires policymakers to be bold and think differently about what’s possible by drawing on best in class examples domestically and globally. We meet policymakers where they are and ensure that examples are transferable and adaptable to context.
Achieving vertical and horizontal alignment across state policy, school districts, and classrooms
Getting a major policy passed is no small feat. But it is the beginning of a journey, not the end. We help policy partners align across the state legislature, Department of Education, school boards, districts, schools, classrooms, and communities.
Planning ahead for the future while solving today’s challenges
Our policy supports attend to the needs of the moment, while building participants’ capacity, systems and structures to anticipate the future and foster innovation and adaptation. We help policymakers meet the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.
Recognizing the intersections of education with other policy areas
NCEE’s work fundamentally sits at a set of intersections – between education and economy, workforce, social services, families and children, housing, infrastructure, and futures anticipation. We help policymakers to understand and communicate how education supports thriving economies, vibrant communities, strong economic mobility, and robust defense and national security.
Embedding real world learning, like site visits and study trips, into policy development
Policymakers and influencers want to experience what learning environments, schools, and communities look like in high-performing and rapidly improving places. NCEE ensures that our policy partners see “learning in action,” and connect directly with youth, educators, and communities.
Tell compelling stories, engage likely and unlikely allies, and advance a new narrative
We offer our partners strategic advice on engaging stakeholders, tools for telling their stories to diverse constituencies, and creative approaches to communicating impact.
Examples of our Work
Designing a Future-Ready Education System with
Nevada
Nevada partnered with NCEE in December 2023 to support its Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education. Throughout 2024, we have helped the Commission examine policies from high-performing systems worldwide, integrate futures anticipation and systems evaluation into policy development, and engage a diverse group of stakeholders—including educators, students, higher education, and business leaders.
Our work in Nevada is not limited to the Commission, but instead leverages broad and deep connections to district superintendents, school boards, educators, businesses, and youth advocates to promote vertical and horizontal alignment.
Strong Schools, Skilled Workers, and Supported Teachers in
Pennsylvania
Since 2023, NCEE has been working with policymakers and advocates in Pennsylvania on two major and interconnected initiatives: The Commission on Education and Economic Competitiveness and the PANeedsTeachers coalition. The Commission will result in a forward-thinking set of recommendations for the 2026 legislative session based on analyses of global educational and economic trends to forecast the skills and competencies Pennsylvania’s workers and citizens will need to be competitive in 2030 and beyond.
We also partner with the Commonwealth and TeachPlus on PA Needs Teachers, a comprehensive strategic plan to understand the root causes of their teacher shortage crisis and implement systemic solutions to teacher preparation, recruitment, and retention challenges.
The Blueprint for the Future in
Maryland
In 2016, Maryland’s General Assembly established the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, to make policy recommendations that would enable Maryland’s students to perform at the level of students in the best-performing systems in the world. NCEE was selected as the lead policy consultant for this important work. NCEE’s recommendations for how to improve the state’s system, research and fiscal analyses were incorporated into the Commission’s report to sharpen the recommendations, design a new funding formula, and ensure that the new funding would be spent effectively and efficiently.
In 2021, the General Assembly passed “The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future,” a 10-year plan to implement the Commission’s recommendations, transforming the state’s education system to compete with the world’s best.
Expanding Horizons with
NCSL
NCEE first partnered with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) in 2014 to facilitate a cohort of 35 members: both state legislators serving as education chairs and senior education committee staff. The group spent two years learning about high performing education systems, how they were designed, and considering the implications of their global study for state policy. The first cohort produced the No Time to Lose report in 2016 – it has since become the most widely reprinted and requested publication NCSL has ever produced, in any policy area.
NCEE proposed and designed a second cohort in 2020, co-convening a new group with NCSL and new partner the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). The second cohort released a follow up report called The Time is Now. This new publication reaffirms the agenda put forth in 2016 but updates the context, renews the call to action, and offers a more futures-oriented and specific set of policy recommendations for legislators to consider.
