Marginalizing Education Research

Got a press release from the Great Lakes Center for Education for Education & Practice today that reads like the headline from some alternate-universe edition of the The Onion where all they write about is education policy:

May 7, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONFLICTING STUDIES ABOUT SCHOOL REFORM ARE INCONCLUSIVE

Policy makers urged not to use RAND and Harvard studies as basis for decision making about school restructuring

Researchers often complain about the disconnect between their findings and real-world policy. Some blame academese and the esoteric nature of university-based research. Others find fault with politicians and policy types who are uninterested / unwilling / unable to dig into complex findings and parse fine distinctions. There's plenty of truth in both arguments. But part of the problem is that researchers tend to assume that their standards for whether research is good enough to add to the canon of knowledge should also apply to whether research is good enough to be used to make policy. As a result, the author of the report concludes, in language that is basically pre-written into the last paragraphs of every study ever written, "Further analysis and research is needed before drawing any definitive conclusions."

It's important for researchers to be judicious and accurate in describing the limitations of their findings, and I'm not arguing that this should change. But education policymakers don't have the luxury of waiting until every possible data element has been gathered and argument addressed. The public schools will be open tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. They'll be governed by policies that exist, and will continue to exist until someone changes them. Not changing them is not a neutral or low-stakes act; it's the same as endorsing their continuation.

In that environment, policymakers have to make judgments--to change or not to change--based on incomplete information. The alternative is deciding based on no information at all and deferring what your spouse or barber or best friend or 3rd grade teacher or biggest campaign donor tells you. Of course, some studies are so bad that they should be roundly ignored, but I don't believe that's the case with the RAND and Harvard studies in question here.

So when representatives of academia (or non-profits closely associated with academia) come along and say "Don't listen to what we have to say," the response from policymakers is predictable: "Sure."