Given the rapid growth of research-practice partnerships (RPPs), we need a framework that helps the field understand how RPPs can facilitate organizational learning in service of local educational improvement and transformation. Drawing on sociocultural and organizational learning theories, we argue that learning can happen for the organizations…

Interest in the study of scale has grown over the past three decades, yet it still suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity. Despite attempts at conceptualizing scale, there is still wide diversity in how the term "scale" is used. These differences matter. They impact how scale is studied, the strategies used to achieve scale, and the…

Recent efforts to improve the quality and availability of scientific research in education, coupled with increased expectations for the use of research in practice, demand new ways of thinking about connections between research and practice. The conceptual framework presented in this paper argues that increasing research in educational…

Transcending the low status of educational research will require demonstrating its relevance to improvements in practice. Educational progress is most likely to emerge from approaches to research that create an equal footing for practitioners and researchers, recognizing that though these groups accumulate and curate knowledge in different ways,…

The mission statement of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) articulates the following goals: "improving the educational process," "advancing knowledge about education," "[encouraging] scholarly inquiry related to education," and "[promoting] the use of research ... to serve the public…

Seventeen years ago Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) published the landmark article "Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy," giving a coherent theoretical statement for resource pedagogies that had been building throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I, like countless teachers and university-based researchers, have been inspired by what it means…

This article describes elements of an approach to research and development called "design-based implementation research." The approach represents an expansion of design research, which typically focuses on classrooms, to include development and testing of innovations that foster alignment and coordination of supports for improving…

In the April 2006 issue of "Educational Researcher," Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, and Garabedian offered their response to the recent outpouring of criticism calling for reform of doctoral education degrees in the United States. The centerpiece of their proposal was the development of a new practitioner-oriented doctoral degree to replace the Ed.D.…

In a response to comments by Rodney Evans on an earlier "Educational Researcher" (ER) article that the author cowrote with three colleagues at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the author shows that Evans' critique is based largely on a misreading or misrepresentation of their argument, its rationale, and associated…

Proposals for the reform of professional education are nearly the same as they were 50 years ago. The quality of reform language is the result of inevitable tension between professional practice and institutions that support it. The language of reform mediates these tensions. (VM)

Presents a series of speeches by three past presidents of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) about the future of the association and educational research in general. Two of the three explain why they are highly critical of the field they helped lead; the third suggests a redirection towards more comprehensive theories from the…

Explains why the lack of properly funded educational research hampers educational reform efforts and research quality, and why those research studies that present relevant and useful findings often never reach potential users. Argues that researchers must stop being timid and must aggressively take the lead in getting the funding needed for…

Reviews four hypotheses that describe the disconnection between educational research and practice. These hypotheses claim that research needs to be more authoritative, relevant, and accessible; and that the educational system is often unable to adequately reply to research findings. The historical thought behind each hypothesis and the place for…

Outlines two responses regarding why educational innovations come and go with such regularity. It is argued that there is a paucity of knowledge about these innovations which is leading to superficial solutions or implementation and that the inability to tap into the roots of these educational innovations results in the reinvention or recycling of…

Considers the question of the high turnover in educational innovations and argues that the high mortality rate of innovations is a function of their operation within an environment of institutionalized organization. Suggests that improving the performance of innovations will require understanding education as a dynamic system. (GR)