Decades of research show that exclusionary discipline practices (e.g., office discipline referrals, suspensions) are disproportionately applied for specific racial groups. Losen and Skiba (2010) found that African American students are three times more likely to be suspended as their White peers. Although the problem of disciplinary inequity is…

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…

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…

While beneficial, the consistent and regular use of evidence to improve teaching and learning is proving difficult to achieve in practice. This paper attempts to shed new light on this issue by examining the question: "If using evidence to inform teaching practice is rational behaviour, why aren't all teachers engaged in it?" It first…

The title is catchy and positive: "Smart, Skilled, and Striving: Transforming and Elevating the Teaching Profession." It sounds like a teacher-friendly approach to improving the perceptions and experiences of teachers working in classrooms. However, this report published by the Center for American Progress uses popular rhetoric and sound…

This keynote address discusses previous and ongoing efforts to reduce the persistent gap between research and practice in social work and offers recommendations for further bridging that gap. Key among those recommendations is the need to conduct descriptive outcome studies of efforts to adapt research-supported interventions in everyday practice…

In the current educational landscape, pressures are ever increasing on educational policy and practice to use research to guide improvement. In recent years, federal programs such as No Child Left Behind, Reading First, and Race to the Top have all provided strong incentives for the use of research in decision-making. Research-practice…

Valid, scientific research is critical for ascertaining the effects of instructional techniques on learners with disabilities and for guiding effective special education practice and policy. Researchers in fields such as psychology and medicine have identified serious and widespread shortcomings in their research literatures related to replication…

Despite a political climate demanding evidence-informed decision making in education both within individual countries and at the international level, empirically grounded European research in this field is scarce. This paper reports on a European Commission-funded study that sought to identify and analyze different initiatives across Europe aimed…

This paper discusses the holistic integration approach that a management school has to adopt, so that the students are equipped with enough skills and techniques to face the challenges of the varying business dynamics. There is a need for Business schools to integrate academic activities with all other relevant processes such that at the end of…

The authors argue for a clearer understanding of the role of research in the preparation of educational professionals at the doctoral level. Building on the work of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), the authors define the nature of problems of practice, offer three ways in which professional practitioners engage research in…

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)--which the College of Education and Social Services (CESS) at the University of Vermont has actively been involved in since 2007--has invited us to think carefully about our EdD doctoral program and its role in the improvement of schools and society. Although the EdD program in Educational…

Education researchers constantly bemoan teachers as resistant to implementing their findings. At the same time, teachers complain that education research is either too esoteric to be of any use in a real classroom or an exercise in proving the obvious. This persistent research-practice chasm is maintained by both the prosaic details of how and…

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…