The SchoolWorks Lab

Discovering How Learning Happens

The SchoolWorks Lab is an educational research and innovation organization. We investigate how learning develops, how educators recognize it, and how better evidence can help every learner grow, succeed, and thrive.

Our work starts with something teachers already know: they see learning happen every day. They see it when a student suddenly makes a connection, when an explanation finally gets clearer, when a misconception shifts. They see it when a learner spots a pattern, revises an idea, solves a problem in a new way, or uses something they’ve learned in a situation they haven’t seen before.

Yet much of what our education system calls evidence captures only a small piece of that growth. We exist to look into what we may be missing, and it all comes down to one question:

How do we know when learning is happening?

Our Mission

Research. Evidence. Innovation. Impact.

Our mission is to advance educational research that uncovers how learning happens, generates evidence that matters, and supports teachers in helping every learner grow, succeed, and thrive. We bring together educational research, classroom practice, technology, and professional judgment to investigate better ways of understanding learning.

We believe better evidence can lead to better questions — and better questions can lead to better teaching.

Meet Our Founder

Robert A. Southworth, Jr., Ed.D.
Scholar • Researcher • Educator • Innovator
A 40+ Year Research Journey Focused on Educational Evidence and Opportunity for All Learners

Academic Credentials

Dartmouth College — A.B., 1981
Tufts University — M.Ed., 1983
Harvard Graduate School of Education — C.A.S., 1992
Teachers College, Columbia University — Ed.D., 1999

Central Research Question

How can more meaningful educational evidence help teachers make better instructional decisions so that every student—especially those who have historically been disadvantaged—has the opportunity to reach high academic standards?

1980s

Learning Through Performance

Theater and classroom experiences revealed that students demonstrate understanding through performance, creativity, and authentic tasks.

Key Experiences

Apprentice Teacher, Shady Hill School
Teacher, Technical Theater & Acting, Colorado Academy
Professional Theater: American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco; Denver Center for the Performing Arts

Foundational Insight
Understanding is best revealed through performance and experience, not just tests.

1990s

Teacher Learning and Assessment

Graduate study deepened my interest in how teachers recognize learning and use assessment to improve instruction.

Key Milestones

Harvard Graduate School of Education – Experienced Teachers Program
M.Ed., Tufts University
Ed.D., Teachers College, Columbia University
Teaching Appointments at Teachers College, Bank Street College, Adelphi University

Research Focus
Teachers need better ways to see, interpret, and respond to student learning.

2000s

Educational Evaluation and Evidence

Founded The SchoolWorks Lab to conduct rigorous research and evaluation of arts, literacy, and school improvement initiatives.

Key Contributions

Founded SchoolWorks Lab (2002)
Evaluations for NYSCA, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Theater Communications Group, NYC DOE, NH DOE, and more
Developed performance assessments and data systems for K–12 programs
Web-based solutions to display student work and outcomes

Research Focus
High-quality evidence is essential for understanding what works and why.

2010s

Arts Integration, Literacy, and Student Achievement

Large-scale studies showed that arts integration and stronger instruction can significantly improve outcomes for disadvantaged learners.

Key Studies

RAISE (2011–2014): 4-year evaluation in Rochester, NY
- 34,000 students
- 1.2 million data points
- Significant gains in ELA (+41.4%) and Math (+38.0%)
- Perfect marks from U.S. DOE
Center for Creative Education Evaluation (2016–2019)

Research Focus
Better instruction, supported by richer evidence, improves results for disadvantaged students.

2018–2021

Building a School and a Model

As Chief Academic Officer at The Foundations School (FL), I built an arts-integrated literacy model, a continuous assessment system, and a teacher growth model.

Key Achievements

93% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch
Reading on grade level:
- 9% on opening (Jan 2021)
- 40% within 6 months (end of first year under my leadership)
- 68% in Year 2
- 89% in Year 3
Average gain: 6.8 reading levels for students attaining proficiency

Research Focus
Evidence-informed instruction and teacher growth can transform student trajectories.

2022–2025

Theory and Paradigm Shift

Developed the Theory of Versatile Intelligence and Assessment (VIA) and the emerging Theory of Educational Evidence (TEE).

Key Contributions

Versatile Intelligence and Assessment (VIA)
Theory of Representational Learning
Learning Genome
Cognitive Learning Architecture
Manuscript Completed: Schooling the Future (Submitted to publisher in 2025; publication delayed due to current political climate.)

Research Focus
Intelligence is versatile, developmental, and represented in patterns of understanding.

2026 & Beyond

Educational Intelligence in Action

Pathfinder operationalizes the Theory of Educational Evidence through AI-supported systems that help teachers see learning clearly, understand it deeply, and act on it effectively.

Current Initiatives

Pathfinder AI Platform
University of Melbourne Research Project (2026)
Australian Research Pilot
India Pilot
Winnacunnet High School Pilot
Seabrook Pilot

Research Focus
AI-supported educational evidence that enhances—not replaces—teacher professionalising judgment.

Why SchoolWorks Exists

Education has become extraordinarily good at producing information about students: Test scores. grades, benchmarks, assignments, attendance records, learning-platform data, teacher observations, student work. Yet more information does not necessarily produce greater understanding.

A student can have an extensive educational record while the most important question remains surprisingly difficult to answer: How is this learner’s understanding actually developing?

SchoolWorks was created to investigate that gap. We are interested not simply in measuring what students can demonstrate at a particular moment, but in understanding the evidence of learning across time.

What We Believe

Our work begins with several propositions that we are willing to investigate, test, refine—and change when the evidence requires it.

Intelligence develops

Human intelligence is not adequately understood as a single fixed quantity. Learning, experience, relationships, reflection, and opportunity contribute to development.

Learning leaves evidence

Changes in understanding can become visible through what learners say, do, create, explain, question, revise, connect, and transfer.

Evidence becomes more meaningful across time

A single assessment can provide useful information. A sequence of evidence may reveal development that an individual snapshot cannot.

Teachers are essential interpreters of evidence

Technology can help organize information and reveal possible patterns. It cannot replace the contextual knowledge, relationships, expertise, and professional judgment educators bring to understanding learners.

Students should participate in understanding their own learning

Students can become contributors to the evidence of their development rather than simply recipients of scores and judgments.

Our ideas must be tested. We do not assume these propositions are true simply because we find them compelling. That is why SchoolWorks conducts research.

How We Work

From Ideas to Evidence

SchoolWorks connects theory, research, classroom practice, and technology through a continuous cycle:

The process then begins again. We are not trying to prove what we already believe. We are trying to discover what the evidence supports.

Our Research

Our current research program examines five interconnected areas:

Teacher Workload
Can better-organized evidence reduce rather than increase the burden on teachers?

Learning Patterns
Can longitudinal evidence reveal changes in understanding that conventional assessments may miss?

Professional Judgment
What evidence helps teachers make stronger and more trustworthy instructional decisions?

Student Portfolios
Can students meaningfully contribute to documenting and understanding their own learning?

Interoperability
Can learning evidence become more useful by connecting information across the tools schools already use?

Our Living Laboratories

Research Where Learning Happens

SchoolWorks conducts research in partnership with educators and schools.

Our pilot sites allow us to investigate these questions in authentic educational environments rather than only in theory: Different ages, different subjects, different teaching approaches, different technologies, different communities and cultures.

The variation matters because an idea about learning should not be considered robust simply because it works in one classroom or one school.

Our schools are not demonstration sites. They are research partners.

Teachers and students help us discover what works, what does not, what needs to change, and what questions we should ask next.

Pathfinder

Turning Ideas Into Something We Can Test

To investigate these questions, SchoolWorks is developing and testing Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a research platform designed to organize learning evidence across time, make patterns in developing understanding more visible, and support teacher professional judgment. It gives us a practical instrument for testing questions that otherwise remain theoretical.

Can evidence be captured without burdening teachers?
Can disconnected evidence become a coherent longitudinal record?
Can meaningful patterns become more visible?
Can students contribute to that record?
Can technology support professional judgment without replacing it?

Pathfinder supports teacher judgment. It does not replace it.

Our Story

Four Decades of Questions About Learning

The SchoolWorks Lab did not begin with Pathfinder. It grew from decades of work in classrooms, schools, districts, educational research, assessment, school improvement, and efforts to understand why some students thrive while others remain poorly served by conventional systems.

Again and again, that work returned to a common problem:

We often have more information about students than we have understanding of their learning.

The development of SchoolWorks represents an effort to bring those accumulated questions together into a focused research agenda. Rather than beginning with another program, assessment, or technology, we returned to the underlying questions:

What is intelligence?
How does learning occur?
How can we recognize learning while it is happening?
How can educators increase the probability that meaningful learning will occur?
How do we know that the learning mattered?

Those questions now guide our work.

Our Team

Research Requires Different Ways of Thinking

The SchoolWorks Lab brings together people with experience in:

Educational Research
Learning science, assessment, evidence, and research design.

Teaching & Learning
Understanding what research questions look like in actual classrooms.

Technology & Design
Creating tools capable of organizing complex evidence while remaining useful to educators.

Implementation
Working alongside schools to understand what is feasible in practice.

International Collaboration
Examining how assumptions about learning and evidence change across educational and cultural contexts.

Governance & Stewardship

The SchoolWorks Lab is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors responsible for mission, strategy, financial stewardship and organizational accountability. The Board provides oversight while preserving the independence and integrity of the Lab’s research.

Our Commitment

We are at the beginning of an ambitious research program. We will undoubtedly discover things we did not expect. Some ideas will become stronger. Others will change. Some may prove wrong.

We believe that willingness is essential.

Ideas should be identified as ideas.
Evidence should be identified as evidence.
Findings should be earned.

And throughout the work, one principle remains constant: Every learner deserves to be understood as more than a score.

Join the Work

SchoolWorks welcomes collaboration with educators, researchers, schools, universities, foundations, philanthropists, and organizations interested in advancing our understanding of learning.

There are many ways to participate:

Become a Research Partner
Support the Research
Collaborate With SchoolWorks
Join a Pilot
Explore Our Publications
Contact Us

Because answering a question as consequential as—How do we know when learning is happening?—will require many people, many perspectives, and a willingness to follow the evidence wherever it leads.