Education Research

So if principals matter, it would be worthwhile to understand what highly expert and effective principals do that matters so much. Are they good at hiring and keeping strong teachers?

Despite the ubiquity of the "bottom third" and similar arguments (which are sometimes phrased as massive generalizations, with no reference to actual proportions), it's unclear how many of those who offer them know what specifically they refer to.

If 2010 was the year of the bombshell in research in the three "major areas" of market-based education reform -- charter schools, performance pay, and value-added in evaluations -- 2011 was the year of the slow, sustained march.

Education policies that affect millions of students have long been tied to test scores, but a new paper suggests those scores are regularly misinterpr...

Although the argument that "teacher quality" has declined substantially is sometimes taken for granted, its empirical backing is actually quite thin, and not as clear-cut as some might believe.

When the National Research Council published the results of a decade-long study on the effects of standardized testing on student learning this summer...

Is it possible that the U.S. has been heading in the wrong direction for most of the 30 years it has been focused on school reform?

In the clamor, the voices of regular classroom teachers are difficult to hear, which is why I am devoting this blog to them. With apologies to Sigmund Freud, "What do teachers want?"

But when you watch what happens after the studies, or you look more carefully at the impact of these interventions, the initial findings have a way of going up in smoke.

Policymakers will see some researchers as timid wafflers; the researchers will view those policymakers as impulsive and shallow in their policymaking.

The L.A. Times has not been simply reporting on teacher evaluations or ratings. It has been creating them and publicizing them.

Staring a sentence with the words "research shows" is aimed at sticking a dagger in the heart of an opponent's argument. Increasingly, though, I am finding reasons not to trust education research.

Sometimes research is cited in ways that are disingenuous because anyone who takes the time to track down those studies often finds that they actually offer little or no support for the claims in question.