Eric Crane, Senior Research Associate and Project Director, works with WestEd national, state, and local clients to gauge school and student performance and make the best use of the results. Crane leads assessment and accountability research as well as projects providing evaluation, data visualization and use, and consulting/technical assistance.
Crane advises multiple state departments of education on the development and implementation of school accountability systems. An experienced facilitator and presenter, he has testified before the California Assembly Committee on Education, the California State Board of Education, and several policy advisory committees.
Crane’s work focuses on effective formative assessment practices, public school accountability, statewide and district data systems, survey and test design, applied statistics and psychometrics, and program evaluation. Since coming to WestEd in 2003, he has led assessment development projects, analytic studies of charter school performance, and evaluations of statewide policy initiatives. He previously managed the Research and Analysis Unit at the California Department of Education.
He has authored reports on school performance, districts’ use of interim assessments, steps for building coherent academic performance standards, and educators’ views on new academic content standards. A past president of the California Educational Research Association, Crane serves on California’s Technical Design Group, supporting the state’s school accountability system.
Crane earned an AB in economics from Princeton University and MA degrees in statistics and quantitative methods in education from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed PhD coursework and the PhD qualification examination in quantitative methods in education from the University of California, Berkeley.