Teacher reports on school organizational functioning, curricular processes, and student engagement are a reliable means of ascertaining valuable information about classroom climate and learning outcomes. Yet, to date, the vast majority of quantitative teacher-reported data, where teachers themselves reach judgments about educational processes,…

Across the OECD, enormous effort and investment has been made to reinforce the quality, production and use of education research in policy and practice. Despite this, using research in education remains a challenge for many countries and systems. The OECD launched the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project to respond to this…

Purpose: This article examines the state of progress of evidence-based educational policies in Europe and identifies organizations for the generation and dissemination of evidence. Further, it discusses some of the most relevant challenges facing the development of evidence-informed education policies in Europe. Design/Approach/Methods: This…

In this chapter the authors provide an overview of the evidence-for-education landscape across countries. Although the importance of using evidence to inform policy and practice in education was identified over 20 years ago, many education systems are still struggling to make this a reality. The enormous expansion of publicly available data on…

Despite frequently expressed reservations concerning its fundamental theoretical weakness, distributed leadership (DL) has grown to become the preferred leadership concept and has acquired taken-for-granted status. This article suggests that the dominance of DL can best be understood as a fashion or fad rather than as a rational choice. It…

In this article, Alden Blodget reflects on his more than 50 years of working in what he terms "the tragicomedy club of school reform," and suggests a need to rethink not just classroom teaching methods but the entire system. Blodget states that if the current system is built on faulty assumptions about learning, then there must be a…

In this article, we describe how the recent movement towards evidence-based programming has impacted Extension. We review how the emphasis on implementing such programs with strict fidelity to an underlying program model may be at odds with Extension's strong history of adapting programming to meet the unique needs of children, youth, families,…

This paper addresses questions of data sharing from the perspective of a former NSF program officer. A brief comparison of policy and research perspectives is made to highlight different values in these two communities. Data sharing is framed as one means to support dialog between researchers and those involved in policy. Other uses of data…

Research can be a powerful tool informing public administration teaching. This article takes the distinctive approach of exploring its use through the prism of the research itself by considering 10 publications by the article's authors. The existing literature revolves around students learning about the craft of research or research findings. By…

In this essay, we explore the importance of state financial aid programs for both states and the students they serve. Effective state financial aid policy benefits from rigorous research that engages partners from a variety of roles, such as state agencies, legislative staff, and intermediary organizations. It also benefits from the engagement of…

Two recent reports contend that the introduction of school choice can promote economic development in economically distressed urban areas. The first report, published by EdChoice, presents a case study of a charter school that has, according to the report, contributed to the economic development of the city of Santa Ana, California. The second…

The paper investigates two -- often disconnected -- policy questions: how can we scale the use of evidence in teaching practice, and how can we generate and scale innovation? Both questions necessitate understanding how teachers and schools connect with each other, and with other organisations and professionals. The paper thus explores the role of…

The landscape of medical education is continuously evolving, as are the needs of the learner. The appropriate use of research and evaluation is key when assessing the need for change and instituting one's innovative endeavours. This paper demonstrates how research seeks to generate new knowledge, whereas evaluation uses information acquired from…

As part of an ongoing series of reports by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), "Learning About Learning: What Every New Teacher Needs to Know" makes broad claims about teacher education based on a limited analysis of textbooks and syllabi. The report argues that teacher education materials, specifically educational psychology…

In the current article, we consider the influential position of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and discuss several methodological areas that demonstrate the need for caution when using and interpreting PISA results. We motivate our argument by briefly describing the program's increased influence in educational policy…