Critical Issues: Crafting State Educational Policy: The Slippery Role of Research and Researchers

Abstract

For most of the past decade, there have been rumblings in the nrc membership around the question: Should nrc be involved in attempting to influence educational policy making? This question has been posed at Town Meetings, in campaign statements, committee reports, conference forums, symposia, and papers. It has been debated at board meetings, Vital Issues, and in nrc publications. The debate continues, but that debate often seems grounded in one or more unwarranted assumptions. In this article, some of those assumptions are challenged, primarily through the use of descriptive case studies of educational policy making in two states - Texas and California.