In case you missed it, I made my debut today as a guest blogger on The Answer Sheet. Valerie Strauss, a veteran education writer for the Washington Post, writes this entertaining blog, which touches—prolifically, I might add— on a wide range of both local and national education issues. I relate findings in my entry from a new study on full-day kindergarten programs.
While I’m busy plugging other people’s blogs, let me also point you to Empirical Education, which has an entry today describing a review of three decades of research on how education research feeds into policymaking—or not. One point the study authors make is that findings from education research are almost never used directly by policymakers. Rather, they are incorporated into a wide range of other information, evidence, and into the “working knowledge” of educators.
And here’s one other tidbit:
In many cases the decision to move forward has been made before the evaluation is complete or even started; thus the evidence from it is used (or ignored) to support that decision or to maintain enthusiasm."
Working in the Washington area as I do, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.