Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education, is a co-recipient of the prestigious and lucrative Yidan Prize this year, winning the award for education research, EdSource reported.
Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond
Darling-Hammond is a professor emeritus at Stanford University and founder of the Learning Policy Institute (LPI).
Recipients of the prize receive $3.9 million, half as a personal award and half to scale up their work. Darling-Hammond will use her money to expand an educator preparation initiative.
“I feel very grateful to be recognized. It was an enormous surprise,” Darling-Hammond said. “It’s wonderful that the prize chose to lift up and recognize the importance of an equity agenda and investing in teachers, which I have been working on for decades and that people need to pay attention to. The prize will provide an opportunity to further lean in on these issues.”
The Yidan Prize comes from the Yidan Prize Foundation, a Hong-Kong based philanthropy founded by Charles Chen Yidan.
Darling-Hammond is a veteran in education policy, having directed the education policy transition team for Presidents Barack Obama in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020.
