This study turns a rhetorical lens on the debate about how best to use value-added modeling (VAM) in teacher evaluation by addressing the question, Which arguments legitimize the dismissal of expert caution about proposed education reforms? My rhetorical analysis of a corpus of nonacademic texts (e.g., newspapers, magazines, political speeches)…

This essay considers the absence, presence, and shifting treatment of the topic of research on teaching and teacher education in AERA presidential addresses. To capture the arc of this topic, the essay is structured chronologically according to three time periods beginning with AERA's birth in 1916 and continuing to the current years. At a general…

Despite the long history of curriculum studies in the American Educational Research Association, few past presidents have used their presidential addresses to speak about the curriculum and its importance in education research and teaching. In this essay, I examined the presidential addresses (and paper) of three well-known curriculum…

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…

The eight presidential addresses included in this essay, delivered between 1923 and 2009, focus wholly or partly on education politics and policy. Although they reflect their different intellectual and social times, they share a dominant theme in documenting the shifting and uneasy relationship between research and education policy. Presidents…

Research on education and society is the focus in discussing four essays of AERA past presidents, Newton Edwards, Maxine Greene, Linda Darling-Hammond, and William F. Tate, IV. The title, "We May Well Become Accomplices... ," is taken from Greene's speech to foreground inherent moral obligations of scholars when racial and social justice…

For a century, AERA has had as its mission using research to improve K-12 and higher education practices. Born in a period of reform, the Association's mission--reformist both in spirit and the letter--has been articulated time and again by its elected presidents. As different reform movements have swept across U.S. schools, as demographics and…

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the quest for civil rights by African Americans and other groups of color reverberated throughout the United States and the world, including within educational professional and research organizations, such as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Council of…

Using five AERA presidential addresses over the past half century as landmarks, this essay traces the evolution of research on teaching and teacher education as well as some critical impacts the research has had on policy and practice related to teacher education and teacher evaluation in the United States. The discussion shows how these addresses…

Early presidents of the American Educational Research Association were leaders in the testing movement. Their intentions were to improve education by means of testing, which included both IQ and achievement tests. Early measurement experts acknowledged in scholarly articles that IQ tests could not measure inherited ability of groups with vastly…

This article investigates the persistent and change elements of educational testing and assessment from 1920 to the present day. I show by examining the addresses and texts of American Educational Research Association presidents a continuing focus on schools, from early experiments and development up through applications in accountability systems.…

Four periods of educational R&D are discussed ranging from the 1890-1950's period of small, unconnected research projects to the present period and the establishment of the National Institute of Education. Speculation on the fifth period which begins with the formulation of the Department of Education is provided. (RLV)

Despite its importance, social research receives relatively little public or federal support or regard because of the lack of visibility of its contributions. One way of improving the image and support of social research, and more specifically, educational research, may be through collaborative planning of research agendas, particularly at the…

Teaches researchers how to improve the quality of both the content and the delivery of research paper presentations. Covers the following topics: (1) understanding the medium; (2) using visual aids; (3) presentation design; (4) delivery; and (5) managing question-and-answer time. (FMW)