Frederick M. Hess and Francesca Lowe wrote over the weekend about the state of educational research in America. They list a parade of horribles of sessions and presentations at the American Education Research Association convention held recently in Chicago. Admittedly, when I read through the piece, I was fairly well disgusted and fervently hoped that not too much taxpayer money was wrapped up in the research referenced by Hess and Lowe.
But Hess and Lowe note that with so much riding on education policy on the federal, state and local levels, there seems to be a massive disconnect between what needs to be researched and what is actually researched by our leading "educational" academics. Of course, Hess and Lowe no doubt cherry picked the worst offenders, but I wonder what is being done in the following areas, areas where I would love to see more research done:
1. Teacher quality--what makes a quality teacher, how can we identify such people, how can we train, retrain, retain and provide professional development for quality teachers.
2. Curricular development--what makes a curriclua effective and what doesn't; how can we build on and expand successful curricula; what is the proper mix of subject matter and experimentation; what about pedagogy for this curricula, what works best for the super majority of students.
3. Local school administration--what are the best practices for budgeting, scheduling, school design, technology and other aspects of running a school; what attributes and training comprise an effective and successful principal and assistant principal corps; what is the best mix of teachers and qualifications; should teachers specialize or cross-train and if so, by how much
4. System wide administration--what is the optimum mix of central control versus local control; how big should administration be; what should the central administration do versus what it is actually doing; what are the best practices for central offices, for supply requisition, for textbook evaluation and purchase
5. Policy concerns: what are the optimum school days and year lengths; what is the role of the school board optimally for; where can school leaders learn from each other.
These are just five of the areas I think are most important and there is some good research going on in these areas--particularly in the teacher quality area. But when our so-called academic experts spend there time on esoteric research that sounds really good on a cirriculum vitae, it is not really helping policy makers in Congress and teh state legislatures lives any easier.
Notice that I mention best practices a number of times. I will admit that we cannot treat education like a manufacturing business if defenders of the status quo public education system will admit that when it comes to the administration of the school, for items like bugeting, technology, human resources management and trasportation/logistics, schools can learn a great deal from for profit businesses and free up a great deal of funds for the actual education of our kids.
Good policy cannot happen without good solid, educational research.
2 comments:
I very much agree that educational research should have a focus (or foci) and like your list.
My question is, who or what would you imagine to be the "dependent variables" for these questions?
As I work on my EdD, it becomes obvious in looking at the sea of educational research that very little is directed at what makes a difference for kids. I think that's an incredible omission.
I have always felt that educational research seem to provide very detailed information on how things are, how they got to be there and what is responsible for why they are that way but very less on what can be done to improve the situation.
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