Giving Compass' Take:

• Michael J. Petrilli, executive editor of Education Next, explains why schools should be using more evidence-based practices and details a few approaches that might help with implementation.

• What are the best ways for schools to scale up evidence-based practices? How would this improve our education system? 

• Here's more about transforming evidence-based practices in philanthropy overall. 

Before the holiday break, I wrote a series of posts discussing how we might turn the “End of Education Policy” (as I see it) into a Golden Age of Educational Practice. It’s time to pick up where I left off.

To be honest, much of what I published in late 2018 amounted to throat-clearing, a warm-up before the main event. My basic (and hardly brilliant) argument was this:

  • It’s possible to identify instructional practices and materials that are more effective than others at improving student outcomes, tapping the tools of science.
  • To do so, we need to collect lots more information about what’s going on in America’s classrooms, and be willing to experiment with new approaches.
  • Then smart people with credibility with educators need to separate the wheat from the chaff, developing practitioner guidance based on the best currently available evidence.

Not that any of this is simple, as it takes serious investment in R&D, tackling tough student privacy issues, and dealing with the inherent complexity and heterogeneity of our schools. But it’s way more doable than the next phase of the research-to-practice cycle: getting schools to actually use the stuff that works.

Read the full article about using evidence-based practices by Michael J. Petrilli at Education Next.