Catalonia has a long tradition of school innovation movements. These have increased in recent years as public administration and private entities have initiated substantial school reforms oriented toward the use of evidence in teaching practice. As the Catalan education system is highly autonomous, not all schools have embraced the…

Purpose: This article examines the state of progress of evidence-based educational policies in Europe and identifies organizations for the generation and dissemination of evidence. Further, it discusses some of the most relevant challenges facing the development of evidence-informed education policies in Europe. Design/Approach/Methods: This…

Even though the evidence-based movement and the concept of public good have been thoroughly discussed and from a range of perspectives in the literature, there is no general consensus on the definitions and nature of these terms and concepts. In this chapter, the author conceptualizes what is meant when educators speak of the concepts like…

We are pleased to contribute to this inaugural issue of The Reading League Journal. The journal's goal is to share information about linking reading science to educational practice. The need is great: literacy levels in the US are shockingly low; a very large percentage of children and adults have only basic reading skills, as indicated by every…

As in international schooling contexts, talk about data-driven practice has become ubiquitous in schooling dialogues in the USA, and with the pending reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (the main driver of increased data use in American schools), educators in the USA should expect even greater calls for formalized data use. Yet, the…

In this chapter the authors provide an overview of the evidence-for-education landscape across countries. Although the importance of using evidence to inform policy and practice in education was identified over 20 years ago, many education systems are still struggling to make this a reality. The enormous expansion of publicly available data on…

Aim: This study examines use and impacts of systematic reviews produced by the Campbell Collaboration's Social Welfare Coordinating Group (SWCG) on practice, policy, and research. Methods: A mixed-method research design was used to examine impacts of 52 systematic reviews published by the SWCG. We conducted author surveys and retrieved multiple…

Beginning with the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB) and reinforced by the "Education Sciences Reform Act" of 2002 (ESRA), the federal government established explicit expectations for the role of research in informing decisions about education programs, policies, and practice, and it also specified new expectations for…

This study describes the activities and influence of three different types of research practice partnerships (RPPs) that shared a common focus on improving mathematics teaching and learning. The three types of RPPs were a networked improvement community (NIC), a design research partnership (DRP), and a research alliance (RA). These types differ in…

This article features a stress management approach that is becoming increasingly influential in schools: mindfulness-based stress reduction. The authors describe what it is, provide research-based evidence of its usefulness, and highlight mindfulness resources that educators can use to manage stress and improve their well-being (including…

The American Psychological Association Board of Educational Affairs Working Group (APA) recommends providing some research experience to undergraduate students in the introductory psychology course. This nationwide survey of introductory psychology instructors explored the frequency of integrated research opportunities in introductory courses,…

Despite frequently expressed reservations concerning its fundamental theoretical weakness, distributed leadership (DL) has grown to become the preferred leadership concept and has acquired taken-for-granted status. This article suggests that the dominance of DL can best be understood as a fashion or fad rather than as a rational choice. It…

Transcending the low status of educational research will require demonstrating its relevance to improvements in practice. Educational progress is most likely to emerge from approaches to research that create an equal footing for practitioners and researchers, recognizing that though these groups accumulate and curate knowledge in different ways,…

Decades of research show that exclusionary discipline practices (e.g., office discipline referrals, suspensions) are disproportionately applied for specific racial groups. Losen and Skiba (2010) found that African American students are three times more likely to be suspended as their White peers. Although the problem of disciplinary inequity is…

In this article, Alden Blodget reflects on his more than 50 years of working in what he terms "the tragicomedy club of school reform," and suggests a need to rethink not just classroom teaching methods but the entire system. Blodget states that if the current system is built on faulty assumptions about learning, then there must be a…