Beginning with the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB) and reinforced by the "Education Sciences Reform Act" of 2002 (ESRA), the federal government established explicit expectations for the role of research in informing decisions about education programs, policies, and practice, and it also specified new expectations for…

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,…

One of the major successes of advanced quantitative methods has been its seeming ability to provide unbiased determinations of which education practices are effective for education in general and for improving the educational achievement and opportunity of the neediest students. The power of this methodology as applied in the top education…

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…

Research evaluations of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)-based interventions for children with autism demonstrate positive outcomes. However, little research has focused on the translation of these evidence-based interventions into service delivery models within existing education systems. In the present article, we provide a description of the…

Despite calls for research-based policies, other types of evidence also influence education policy, including personal experience, professional expertise, and normative values. This article focuses on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative, examining how research use varied over stages of the process and how it was integrated with other…

The process of building a culture of evidence involves using data to understand where students are experiencing problems, designing strategies for remedying those problems, implementing them, and then evaluating the effectiveness of those implemented strategies. This case study is about two programs that were implemented within the last two years…

The importance of educational practices based on evidence is well-supported in the literature, however barriers to their implementation in classrooms still exist. This paper examines the phenomenon of evidence-based practice in education highlighting enablers and barriers to their implementation with particular reference to RTLB practice.

The articles in this issue call for a deeper and better understanding of data, their use, the conditions that are most conducive for using data well, how individuals and groups of practitioners make sense of the data before them, and the intended and unintended consequences of data use for school improvement. The authors together craft important…

Based on two studies conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2009 and 2010, we found that teachers do, in fact, use research, although they tend to seek it out under very specific conditions and circumstances. Namely, teachers tend to look to research in response to an immediate, pressing concern such as how to best teach fractions to…

In their opening comments to this special issue on data use, Coburn and Turner point to "one of the most central questions in social theory: the interrelationship between macro-social structure and micro-level action." Questions about data use--which entail social phenomena that range from federal policy to moment-to-moment interactions…

Many stakeholders have long argued that teachers should use data from their own teaching as a way to improve their performance. The first chapter of this dissertation is a summary of the literature that advises mathematics teachers about what data they should gather and how they should use those data to improve instruction. The literature is…

Policymakers across the nation are leading efforts to ensure that every classroom has an effective teacher. Faced with the need to dramatically improve student outcomes, states have embraced a policy agenda that promotes and supports teacher quality in many ways, including developing evaluation and compensation policies, targeting professional…

Data are only useful if people are able to access, understand and use them. Without access to the right information, stakeholders are forced to make decisions based on anecdote, experience or instinct. For information to be useful, it must be timely, readily available, and easy to understand. This brief highlights the importance of implementing…

This case study examined a multi-college community college district in northern California in a primarily rural area, to understand how their practices compared to management best practices designed to improve student success, barriers that may exist in implementing best practices, and how the institution may improve its own practices. The problem…