Anthony Bryk, Ed.D., president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has been awarded the 2020 AACTE David G. Imig Award for Distinguished Achievement in Teacher Education from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Named for AACTE’s President and CEO Emeritus, the David G. Imig Award for Distinguished Achievement in Teacher Education recognizes an individual’s career achievement in the formulation, implementation, research or analysis of educator preparation policy.

“For 24 years, AACTE has honored its member institutions, leaders, and individuals who make bold, exceptional, and revolutionary contributions to our field. We are grateful to Dr. Bryk for his work and contributions to the advancement of teaching, and we look forward to honoring him,” said Lynn M. Gangone, AACTE president and CEO. “AACTE regularly employs the Carnegie Foundation’s Network Improved Communities model to create solutions in critical shortage areas such as special education, and develop strategies to recruit and retain Black and Hispanic/Latino men into the teaching profession.”

Since becoming the ninth president of the Carnegie Foundation in 2008, Bryk has directed its efforts on positioning improvement science and the formation of structured improvement networks as the fulcrum for strengthening teaching and learning with the goal of solving longstanding inequities in educational outcomes associated with race, ethnicity, and poverty. Today, this work touches thousands of school district leaders, principals, teachers, policymakers, and researchers across the country and around the world.

“From its founding, the mission of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher,” says Bryk. “Throughout my career, and especially as the foundation’s president, I have worked to elevate the voices of teachers and to empower them with the principles, tools, and methods they need to improve their classrooms and their schools.”

Prior to joining Carnegie, Bryk held the Spencer Chair in Organizational Studies in the School of Education and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He came to Stanford from the University of Chicago where he was the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the sociology department and where he helped found the Center for Urban School Improvement and the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which has supported school reform efforts in the city of Chicago for over 30 years. In addition, Bryk’s early work in educational statistics contributed to the development of Hierarchical Linear Models that transformed statistical applications across a broad array of fields in the social and behavioral sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Bryk has published extensively, including his most recent book, Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better, that interrogates how to better achieve quality educational outcomes more reliably at scale. Two of his earlier books—Trust in Schools and Organizing Schools for Improvement—synthesize some 15 years of evidence on how the organization of schools and the resources present in community contexts can enhance student engagement and advance student learning. These books continue to provide practical frameworks for improvement across a large number of urban school districts.

“Bryk and colleagues undertook an array of studies of the Chicago Public Schools that laid the foundation for the transformation of that system and its rise to the top of urban school systems in this country,” says David Imig. “His leadership has helped shape policy efforts pertaining to early literacy and deep learning, teacher induction, and professional development.”

“I am extremely honored to receive the AACTE 2020 AACTE David G. Imig Award. I very much appreciate AACTE’s commitment to high-quality, evidence-informed teacher preparation and their commitment to prepare all educators to teach all learners. I look forward to continuing my work with AACTE members in joining together to help our schools get better at getting better.”

Bryk will be recognized formally with the award at the AACTE 72nd Annual Meeting, February 28–March 1, in Atlanta, GA.

About Carnegie

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is committed to developing networks of ideas, individuals, and institutions to advance teaching and learning. We join together scholars, practitioners, and designers in new ways to solve problems of educational practice. Toward this end, we work to integrate the discipline of improvement science into education with the goal of building the field’s capacity to improve.