Larkin Willis

lwillis
Larkin Willis
Research and Policy Associate, Educator Quality and Whole Child Education,
Learning Policy Institute

Larkin Willis is a research and policy associate at the Learning Policy Institute, where she is a member of the Educator Quality and Whole Child Education teams. Her work focuses on supporting and documenting systems change to advance equity in K–12 and higher education. She is a co-author of Sharing the Wealth: How Regional Finance and Desegregation Plans Can Enhance Educational Equity. She was previously a researcher at Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), where she supported a multi-year evaluation of the CORE Networked Improvement Community. She began her career teaching mathematics and science in southeastern Louisiana. Willis earned a BA with honors in political and social thought from the University of Virginia and an MA in international comparative education from Stanford University.

updated 2025

Contributing topics
Continuous school improvement & support
Contributing initiatives
CORE-PACE Research Partnership
Publications by Larkin Willis
Building Systems Knowledge for Continuous Improvement
Early lessons from the CORE Districts
California policy shifts gave school districts more control, but many lack expertise and capacity for improvement. The CORE districts applied continuous improvement in a Networked Improvement Community to close the math achievement gap for African…