Ronald Edmonds

He was a faculty member at the University of Michigan's Labor School from 1968 to 1970, and Director of the Center for Urban Studies in Harvard's graduate education program from 1973 to 1977.

[2] Edmonds' research into the essential qualities of successful schools emerged as a response to the controversial 1966 Coleman Report, which concluded that family background and socio-economics were the major determinants of student achievement.

Research published by Christopher Jenks in 1972 contributed to Coleman's findings, suggesting that "school quality has little effect on achievement.

[5] Edmonds and other researchers did not accept the Coleman Report's findings as conclusive, and attempted to locate schools where children from low income families were successful.

[4] Edmonds stated that "mastery of basic skills" was fundamental to effective schools, and also "by equity I mean a simple sense of fairness in the distribution of the primary goods and services that characterize our social order."