Heather J. Hough

heather_hough
Heather J. Hough
Senior Policy and Research Fellow,
Policy Analysis for California Education, Stanford University

Heather Hough is a senior policy and research fellow and the former executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). Her research and analytic approach explores how a wide range of data on student outcomes—including academic, health and well-being, and experiential—can inform our collective understanding of student success, teacher and system performance, and the efficacy of programs and policies. She is committed to strengthening the impact of research on local- and state-level policymaking and implementation, with a particular focus on policy coherence, system alignment, and continuous improvement. Hough has worked in a variety of capacities to support policy and practice in education, including as the founding director of the research partnership between PACE and the CORE Districts; as an improvement advisor at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; and as a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University, and the Center for Education Policy at SRI International. She has served on many statewide committees and work groups, and is currently a member of the advisory board for the Cradle-to-Career Data System. Hough received her BA in public policy and her PhD in education policy from Stanford University.

updated 2024

Publications by Heather J. Hough
A Pragmatic Approach to Validity and Reliability
As educational practitioners and policymakers expand the range of student outcomes they assess, student perception surveys—particularly those targeting social-emotional learning (SEL)—have grown in popularity. Despite excitement around the potential…
Evidence from the CORE Districts
Mounting evidence demonstrates that social-emotional skills are important for students’ academic and life success, yet there is limited evidence on how these skills develop over time and how this development varies across student subgroups. This…
Findings from the First Large-Scale Panel Survey of Students
Measures of school-level growth in student outcomes are common tools used to assess the impacts of schools. The vast majority of these measures are based on standardized tests, even though emerging evidence demonstrates the importance of social-…
Practices and Supports Employed in CORE Districts and Schools
Social-emotional learning (SEL) refers to the beliefs, attitudes, personality traits, and behaviors that students need to succeed in school and life. Our study looks closely at ten “outlier schools” in California’s CORE districts whose students…