The Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and Improvement
The purpose of this contribution to Oxford Bibliographies in Education is to establish context for the series of articles on improvement-focused educational research, a developing field aimed at producing and using knowledge to address problems, needs, and opportunities grounded deeply in practice contexts. This article frames the policy context of educational innovation and improvement in the United States from which improvement-focused educational research has emerged and in which it is currently developing. We conceptualize “policy” broadly as initiatives and movements that aim to drive the agenda for (and pursuit of) educational innovation as advanced both (a) within and by branches and agencies of government and (b) outside of government, by philanthropies, non-profit organizations, associations, and interest groups. We focus specifically on federal and national policy initiatives since the 1950s that have shared the central priorities of improvement-focused educational research: i.e., effecting innovation and improvement in instructional practice, its organization, and its management, with the primary goals of improving quality and reducing disparities in students’ educational experiences and outcomes. This is for three reasons: (1) the 1950s mark a pivot in societal ambitions for public education in the United States, beyond universal access to public schools to excellence and equity in students’ educational experiences and outcomes; (2) the 1950s mark the beginning of a decades-long period of increasing federal engagement in public education, with a central focus on improving educational quality and reducing educational disparities; and (3) investment in educational research and development in the United States has played out largely at the national level, with weak state investment and with state policy agendas for innovation and improvement shaped heavily by national-level policy activity. Understanding the policy context of improvement-focused educational research, thus, is an interpretive exercise that requires examining patterns of thought and action in this complex idea space. To support readers in this exercise, this article is structured in three parts: (1) an examination of the broader US educational policy context; (2) an examination of what we describe as a “resource-based approach” to educational innovation and improvement; and (3) an examination of what we describe as the “practice-based approach” to educational innovation and improvement. Since the 1950s, the resource-based approach has been a chief focus of federal and national policy. The practice-based approach has developed concurrently and in interaction with the resource-based approach, though absent commensurate federal policy support. Together, the resource-based and practice-based approaches to educational innovation and improvement provide a framework for understanding the policy contexts from which improvement-focused educational research has emerged and in which it is developing.
Official Bibliography Webpage (via Oxford Bibliographies)
Democratizing Educational Innovation and Improvement: The Policy Contexts of Improvement Research in Education
Peurach, D. J., & Foster, A. T. (2020). The Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and Improvement. Oxford Bibliographies. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756810-0249
Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform
Learning Sciences and Policy Design and Implementation: Key Concepts and Tools for Collaborative Engagement
How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice
Improving Educational Research: Toward a More Useful, More Influential, and Better-Funded Enterprise
Design Experiments: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Creating Complex Interventions in Classroom Settings
The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences
Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland: Or, Why It's Amazing that Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes
Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation
Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use
Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving
The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies
The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management
Going to Scale with New School Designs: Reinventing High School
Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools
Instructional Program Coherence: What It Is and Why It Should Guide School Improvement Policy
Achieving Coherence in District Improvement: Managing the Relationship Between the Central Office and Schools
Designing Coherent Education Policy: Improving the System
Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago
Backward Mapping: Implementation Research and Policy Decisions
Federal Programs Supporting Educational Change: Vol. VIII, Implementing and Sustaining Innovations
Critical Issues and Common Pitfalls in Designing and Conducting Impact Studies in Education: Lessons Learned from the What Works Clearinghouse (Phase I)
Editors' Comment [Introducing the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness]
Facing the Challenges of Whole-School Reform: New American Schools After a Decade
Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America
PET and the Pendulum: Faddism in Education and How to Stop It
Institutional and Technical Sources of Organizational Structure Explaining the Structure of Educational Organizations
The Awful Reputation of Education Research
Education R&D's Lament (And What to Do about It)
The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement
Charting Chicago School Reform: Democratic Localism As A Lever For Change
Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 2018
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004
Project Follow Through: A Case Study of Contingencies Influencing Instructional Practices of the Educational Establishment
Education for Children of the Poor: A Study of the Origins and Implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling
Test Score Growth Among Chicago Public School Students, 2009-2014
In Search of Deeper Learning: Inside the Effort to Remake the American High School
Conceptualizing Relations Between Instructional Guidance Infrastructure (IGI) and Teachers’ Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction: Regulative, Normative, and Cultural-Cognitive Considerations
The Road to Charlottesville: The 1989 Education Summit
Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States
Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring US Students Receive a World Class Education
Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence
The Ecology of School Improvement: Notes on the School Improvement Industry in the United States
Community Organizing for Stronger Schools: Strategies and Successes
Policy and Practice: The Relations between Governance and Instruction
The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980
Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do About It
The Ordeal of Equality: Did Federal Regulation Fix the Schools?
Westminster School Dist. of Orange County v. Mendez, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947)
Hendrick Hudson Dist. Bd. Of Ed. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 (1982)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka., 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Expanding the Reach of Education Reforms: Perspectives from Leaders in the Scale-Up of Educational Interventions
Seeing Complexity in Public Education: Problems, Possibilities, and Success for All
The Obama Administration’s Evidence-Based Social Policy Initiatives: An Overview
A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier
The Future of the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics
2014 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture: Rigor and Realism: Doing Educational Science in the Real World
Nested Learning Systems for the Thinking Curriculum
Educative Curriculum Materials: Uptake, Impact, and Implications for Research and Design
Governments, Markets, and Instruction: Considerations for Cross-National Research
The Linear Model of Innovation: The Historical Construction of an Analytical Framework
Progressive Social Movements and Educational Equity
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform
Update on the National Diffusion Network
2014 AERA Distinguished Lecture: Accelerating How We Learn to Improve
The SERP Approach to Problem-Solving Research, Development, and Implementation
Strategic Education Research Partnership
What Is Improvement Science? Do We Need It in Education?
From Mass Schooling to Education Systems: Changing Patterns in the Organization and Management of Instruction
Department of Education Organization Act of 1979
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (P.L. 94–142)
National Institute of Education Act of 1972
Oxford Bibliographies [Special Series]: Continuous Improvement in Education
Oxford Bibliographies: Continuous Improvement in Education [Special Series]