Recent years have witnessed important new works questioning the role of philanthropy in education research and education reform. Sparked by Rick Hess and colleagues in With the Best of Intentions (2005) and The New Education Philanthropy (2015), provocative new books such as Sarah Reckhow’s Follow the Money (2012), Megan Tompkins-Stange’s Policy Patrons (2016), and Michael […]
We recognize that no single effort will be transformative, but we hope that our collective efforts as researchers, research funders, universities, and professional associations can support research that, over the long term, improves the lives of young people.
Put simply, the dichotomy of rigor versus relevance is false. There is no inevitable trade-off between producing rigorous research and producing research with relevance for the real world. Researchers who want their work to matter in policy and practice should begin by identifying the questions of greatest relevance and then bring the highest standards of theoretical and methodological rigor to those questions.
The Commission on Evidence-based Policymaking is an opportunity that doesn’t come every year, and may not come again. Let’s make the most of it.
A key approach in our efforts to support impactful research is to invest in the development of tools that enhance the work of many researchers engaged in a common enterprise.
This year, the American Educational Research Association (AREA) will celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary at its annual meeting in Washington, DC on April 8-12, 2016. Throughout its history, AERA has provided a forum for researchers to share substantive findings and methodological advances to further the field. In recent years, AERA has become increasingly engaged in the […]
What is the current state of funding for research on inequality in the United States?
One reason for all the attention to inequality these days is that, despite many efforts to improve opportunities for disadvantaged young people, inequality in many domains has been getting worse, not better. Education is one of those domains—and as someone who keeps close tabs on our education system, this is not what I expected. Back […]
Education is a gateway for opportunity—a pathway to progress through which young people acquire the skills, knowledge, and experiences to obtain good jobs and prosperous futures. Yet in the U.S., education is highly unequal. On average, students from minority backgrounds, immigrant origins, and economically disadvantaged families leave school earlier, receive fewer degrees and certificates, and exhibit lower academic skills than their more privileged peers. To address these inequalities, we need research that identifies effective responses to the challenges that give rise to unequal opportunities and outcomes.
I’m excited to meet up with colleagues and talk about important topics in education research and practice at the upcoming meeting of the American Education Research Association.
Author
Adam Gamoran
Recent years have witnessed important new works questioning the role of philanthropy in education research and education reform. Sparked by Rick Hess and colleagues in With the Best of Intentions (2005) and The New Education Philanthropy (2015), provocative new books such as Sarah Reckhow’s Follow the Money (2012), Megan Tompkins-Stange’s Policy Patrons (2016), and Michael […]
We recognize that no single effort will be transformative, but we hope that our collective efforts as researchers, research funders, universities, and professional associations can support research that, over the long term, improves the lives of young people.
Put simply, the dichotomy of rigor versus relevance is false. There is no inevitable trade-off between producing rigorous research and producing research with relevance for the real world. Researchers who want their work to matter in policy and practice should begin by identifying the questions of greatest relevance and then bring the highest standards of theoretical and methodological rigor to those questions.
The Commission on Evidence-based Policymaking is an opportunity that doesn’t come every year, and may not come again. Let’s make the most of it.
A key approach in our efforts to support impactful research is to invest in the development of tools that enhance the work of many researchers engaged in a common enterprise.
This year, the American Educational Research Association (AREA) will celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary at its annual meeting in Washington, DC on April 8-12, 2016. Throughout its history, AERA has provided a forum for researchers to share substantive findings and methodological advances to further the field. In recent years, AERA has become increasingly engaged in the […]
What is the current state of funding for research on inequality in the United States?
One reason for all the attention to inequality these days is that, despite many efforts to improve opportunities for disadvantaged young people, inequality in many domains has been getting worse, not better. Education is one of those domains—and as someone who keeps close tabs on our education system, this is not what I expected. Back […]
Education is a gateway for opportunity—a pathway to progress through which young people acquire the skills, knowledge, and experiences to obtain good jobs and prosperous futures. Yet in the U.S., education is highly unequal. On average, students from minority backgrounds, immigrant origins, and economically disadvantaged families leave school earlier, receive fewer degrees and certificates, and exhibit lower academic skills than their more privileged peers. To address these inequalities, we need research that identifies effective responses to the challenges that give rise to unequal opportunities and outcomes.
I’m excited to meet up with colleagues and talk about important topics in education research and practice at the upcoming meeting of the American Education Research Association.