Education science in search of answers

The Education Department made big news last July when it released a long-awaited study that compared the test scores of children in more than 7,500 public and private schools. With most other things being equal, public school students often do better and sometimes a lot better than private-schoolers, the research found.

But four days later, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings stood in the expansive hearing room of the House Education Committee to unveil a $100 million proposal to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to send public school students to private schools.

Spellings called the study irrelevant, saying it was small and flawed. Other advocates of vouchers, such as Harvard University researcher Paul Peterson, agreed. Advocates of public schools, including teachers unions, say the Bush administration chose to ignore a study that didn't support its agenda.

In the end, it was a pretty good metaphor for the state of educational research: More than five years after President Bush's No Child Left Behind law told educators to rely on "scientifically based" methods, the science produced is often inconclusive, politically charged or less than useful for classroom teachers. And when it is useful, it often is misused or ignored altogether.

As the 88th annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) takes place this week in Chicago, critics say the USA's huge community of education researchers -- 14,000 are attending -- often studies topics that do little to help schools solve practical problems such as how to train teachers, how to raise skills, how to lower dropout rates and whether smaller classes really make a difference....

"We have a separation in that some of us who do the research aren't running the schools," says William Tate, a math researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who will take over as AERA's new president this month.

Tate points out excellent research, for instance, on dropout prevention, released in February by Columbia University, which identified five cost-effective ways to boost high school graduation rates. The study should be in the hands "of every superintendent in America," Tate says. But they probably won't see it because, unlike in medicine, there's no systematic way for important research to be disseminated.

"We don't have that kind of infrastructure," he says. "It's just not there." ...

•	Education science in search of answers Research's usefulness is called into question USA Today, Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Byline: Greg Toppo, USA TODAY