Indirect routes to strengthening research-practice connections, through intermediaries or knowledge brokers, have received little emphasis in discussions of education research and practice. Joel Malin compares direct and indirect approaches to making these connections and considers how indirect actors are situated in the education system and what…

Florida's Broward County Public Schools and the University of Chicago engaged in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) to scale teacher practices that support students' critical thinking. As part of the RPP, Jeanne Century's research team conducted research to determine what barriers might limit the spread of these practices. The findings show…

The relationship between research and practice in K-12 is complicated and fraught. Research publications are unlikely to become more "user-friendly," and teachers are unlikely to change their practice quickly or more willingly -- nor should they. Recognize that reality, Isobel Stevenson and Richard Lemons explain that schools need to…

The authors of this article are engaged in an ongoing pilot implementation and study of the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) Educator Growth and Development Cycle, known as EGDC. LAUSD implemented the EGDC pilot in the 2011-12 school year, focusing on a small subset of volunteering school administrators and teachers. The district's…

We must reengineer both how we carry out educational R&D and the schools in which this work occurs if we want to achieve more productive ends. Education needs a Design, Educational Engineering, and Development infrastructure, which includes a rapid prototyping process by which researchers and practitioners co-develop innovations, try them in…

In fall 1983, the author was asked to write a column that would bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners and systematize "Phi Delta Kappan's" haphazard approach to reporting research studies. For the column's 20th anniversary, the author wrote a three-part series, "The Trouble with Research," which talks about how research has been…

Unlike every other developed country, Canada has had no national or pan-Canadian agency that works to support and promote research in education, and especially to build connections between research, policy, and practice. Canada has a national granting council that funds academic research in all fields, including education (the Social Sciences and…

"Turnaround" has become the new buzzword in education. From states and districts paying for principals to be trained as turnaround specialists to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's call to turn around the country's 5,000 lowest-performing schools, the concept of rapid, large-scale reform in individual schools--not just incremental…

Strengthening connections between research and practice is an important goal in education. Making the connection has both a supply side and a demand side but the demand is often ignored in education. The authors offer six hypotheses about why this situation occurs.

In recent years, the rigor and quality of educational research have drawn much attention. This increased interest has been driven by state efforts to collect student achievement data, the creation of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the explicit call for"scientifically based research" written into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,…

The OERI-funded research summarized in this special "Kappan" section constitutes a "trickle-up" research agenda animated by real respect for local autonomy and unwavering commitment to public service. The most valuable research will emerge from a collaborative culture uniting university-based researchers, K-12 practitioners and…

Congress should formulate U.S. testing policy to ensure that reliable and accurate data are available to policymakers, educators, and the public and that tests are used fairly without infringing on individual rights or imposing unacceptable social costs. Appropriate test use and continued research funding must be a high priority for agencies…

U.S. business and industry must follow Xerox's training, staff development, and research and development example to leapfrog ahead of foreign competitors. The business community launched the New American Schools Development Corporation to carry out the America 2000 plan to transform U.S. schooling. So far, America 2000 communities are focusing on…