Every Student Succeeds: Examining the Gap Between Research Use and Policy Enactment

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 1

Abstract

This paper investigates how federal policymakers and policy advocates considered and used empirically validated research in crafting legislation regarding reauthorization of ESSA, and examined the ways in which these policies (specifically the use of multiple measures for teacher and school evaluation) were enacted. We analyzed interviews from elite policymakers for content related to research use and the ways in which multiple measures developed as a policy. Additionally, a content analysis of over 1,100 mass media documents revealed that in public media during this period, discussion of multiple measures to was, at the time, scant. This paper illustrates the power and limitations of education research as individuals in the educational policy realm use it to craft legislation.

Authors

• Rebecca Cruz, University of California - Berkeley

• Paul FuChyun Lai, University of California - Berkeley

• Prudence L. Carter, University of California - Berkeley