31.013 - Educational Goods: Values-Driven and Evidence-Informed Decision Making

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Good educational decision-making requires good evidence. That is true regardless of whether the decision makers are at the Federal, state, district, school or classroom level. Good evidence comes from social scientists who use a variety of rigorous methods, and superintendents, principals and teachers whose less systematic approaches can, nevertheless, yield useful information. To be useful, however, evidence must also be relevant. For social scientists to provide relevant evidence they must know what values are pertinent to the kinds of choices available to decision- makers. When deciding whether or not to implement tracking across or within schools, for example, decision-makers need evidence on more than just its likely effect on average student achievement because improving average student achievement, especially as measured narrowly by test scores, is not the only value that matters. Decision-makers also need evidence about how tracking will affect the distribution of student achievement across well-defined demographic groups: an increase in average achievement would count in favor of tracking while an increase in the achievement gap between higher and lower income students would count against it. Relevant evidence would also include the long term effects of tracking on how children view, and relate to, one another given that schooling should foster the capacity to treat others as one’s equals, both in personal life and as democratic citizens. Social scientists need a moral compass in order to discern the evidence relevant to decisions. Decision-makers themselves, of course, need a moral compass. Good decisions require relevant evidence and good moral judgement – judgement guided by good values.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Helen F. Ladd, Duke University

Participants

• Helen F. Ladd, Duke University

• Susanna Loeb, Brown University

• Harry Brighouse, The University of Wisconsin - Madison