- About the USC Rossier School of Education
- Mission & Values
Mission & Values
Our Mission
The mission of the USC Rossier School of Education (pronounced “ross-EAR”) is to prepare leaders to achieve educational equity through practice, research and policy. We work to improve learning opportunities and outcomes in urban settings and to address disparities that affect historically marginalized groups. We teach our students to value and respect the cultural context of the communities in which they work and to interrogate the systems of power that shape policies and practices. Through innovative thinking and research, we strive to solve the most intractable educational problems.
Academic Pillars
Inside and outside of the classroom, USC Rossier’s culture is driven by four key pillars.
Students will:
- Apply accountable leadership strategies to create the structural, human relations, political and symbolic/cultural dimensions critical for high-performance learning organizations.
- Demonstrate initiative in creating solutions to barriers to learning that they identify within their organization and community.
- Demonstrate an ability to create and sustain partnerships (i.e., groups, teams, organizations) that effectively improve learning.
Students will:
- Apply evidence-based theories and principles of learning, motivation and cultural competence to optimize practice in educational settings locally, nationally and globally.
- Demonstrate the belief that effective instruction is learner-centered, theoretically grounded and contextually responsive to the individual differences of all learners.
Students will develop the ability to:
- Establish goals and strategies for their position that support improved learning in their organization.
- Apply goal-directed, data-driven decision-making to generate consistent and measurable outcomes that are responsive to established standards and the needs of students, comm unity and society.
- Demonstrate the belief that accountability and communication to all stakeholder groups lead to transparent and equitable educational outcomes that are responsive to all learners.
Students will:
- Develop an unshakeable commitment to a diversity of thought and experience in their practice (e.g., diversity of race, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language proficiency and disability).
- Identify practices, structures and policies that create barriers to learning and develop the skill and political savvy to negotiate, if not eliminate, those barriers for themselves and on behalf of others.
- Demonstrate the value of using individual and cultural differences to inform practice related to accountability, leadership, and instruction that result in equal opportunity and access for all learners.