Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University and President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute. She has conducted extensive research on issues of educator supply, demand, and quality. Among her award-winning publications in this area are What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future (1996); Teaching as the Learning Profession (1999); and Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and be Able to Do (2005). She was executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future and director of RAND Corporation’s education program. Darling-Hammond began her career as a public school teacher.