Sola Takahashi, Senior Research Associate with the Improvement Science team, leads WestEd’s improvement analytics work. For over a decade, she has led large-scale efforts to develop and use measurement to improve educational systems through a continuous improvement approach. A seasoned designer and facilitator of trainings, she integrates continuous improvement methods into a wide range of coaching, technical assistance, and research.
Currently, Takahashi leads a multiyear project to gather, develop, and support the use of “practical measurement” to advance equity in middle grades math instruction. She also provides continuous improvement training and support for many other improvement projects, including early grade literacy, teacher preparation programs, and the intersection of improvement science methods and advancing educational equity. Her recent publications include an entry in the Oxford Bibliography series about measurement in the context of continuous improvement; a report detailing how continuous improvement methods may be applied to supporting educational equity, and where challenges and barriers arise in this application; and a report detailing the process measures that can inform the development and refinement of teacher preparation programs.
Takahashi also has expertise in traditional research methods, including quasi-experimental design. She is deeply committed to educational equity and centers this commitment in her work.
She was previously a Senior Research Associate at the Carnegie Foundation, where she led the development of measures and analytic systems that support improvement efforts in schools. Her work is informed by the years she served as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Takahashi earned an EdD from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an MA in Education from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA from Wesleyan University.