Carrie Townley-Flores
Director of Research and Partnerships
Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR), Stanford University
Dr. Carrie Townley-Flores is the Director of Research and Partnerships for the Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) at Stanford University. ROAR is a free, automated, group-administered, online assessment of foundational reading skills and more in English and Spanish. ROAR aims to lower the barriers to literacy by providing K-12 teachers rapid data to inform interventions. Carrie and her team work directly with school district partners around the country to research reading development and assessment. They are currently seeking district partners interested in collaborating on a study of executive functioning and dyslexia and a study on the rapid assessment of multilingual learners. Carrie started working with ROAR while she was finishing her PhD in Education Policy at Stanford, where she studied how education policies exacerbate and mitigate economic and racial inequality. Prior to Stanford, she taught middle and high school English, and she wishes she had had access to ROAR back then. Her years of classroom experience and study of policy and inequality influence how she directs ROAR research and partnerships, but she learns the most through her conversations with ROAR’s school partners who are doing the work to support the next generation of students with reading.