Leveraging Learning: The Evolving Role of Federal Policy in Education Research

Overview & Synopsis

As transformative reforms like the Common Core State Standards and educator evaluation roll out amidst a rapidly changing demographic landscape, the need for getting high-quality research on timely topics into the hands of practitioners grows all the more urgent. While rigor and relevance need not be a question of "either/or", but rather an instance of "both/and," there's a tension between the timeline of traditional research and the fast-paced change of education reform that policymakers need to address. Moreover, reconciling rigor and relevance does not in itself ensure access to and use of research by practitioners: How can federal policy better calibrate the current rigor-relevance balance in education research and improve meaningful uptake by the field? "Leveraging Learning" contributes to that discussion with a series of essays, infographics, and briefs that outline the current federal landscape of education R&D and envision its future. Featured essays and briefs include: (1) Strengthening the Education Sciences Reform Act: Fostering Innovation and Efficiency through Mechanism Experiments (Timothy Knowles and Jens Ludwig); (2) Strengthening the Use and Usefulness of Education Research (Vivian Tseng); (3) A Brief History of Federal Efforts to Improve Education Research (Nancy Kober); (4) New Directions in Education Research: The Federal Role (Robert E. Slavin); (5) The Evidence-based School District: A Make-Believe District with a Real-World Mission (Michael J. Petrilli); and (6) Why We Need a DARPA for Education (ARPA-ED) (U.S. Department of Education) (working draft).