On Policy-Relevant Knowledge

Abstract

Being bombarded with authoritative information from all sides is a familiar feature of modern life. When the intent of such information is to affect policy, Ms. Lagemann cautions, we must carefully evaluate its soundness. And we must teach our students to adopt the same questioning stance. TODAY, all of us the U.S. are constantly bombarded with reports of expert and opinion on most topics of concern--war the Middle East, health care Florida, drought Darfur, the Chinese economy, and, hardly least important, the state of U.S. education. Historically, it is not novel to be subjected to expert pronouncements on the questions of the day. There have always been weighty statements issued by the powerful and the knowledgeable. Such statements have always been intended, as they are today, to shape the thinking of other people and, through that, to affect public or government action. But the situation today deserves special attention, I believe. We live a world saturated with what I call policy-relevant knowledge, and it behooves us to pause and ponder what that entails for those of us who are parents and grandparents, teachers and school leaders, school board members and concerned citizens. To understand what I mean by policy-relevant knowledge, it may be useful to think back to Colonial New England. In Hallowell, Maine, or Concord, Massachusetts, churches were the initial centers of town life. Families attended church together to learn about the Bible, to talk about politics, to exchange gossip and information with their neighbors, and to hear official pronouncements from the Colonial authorities. Churches Colonial New England were, a sense, centers for the dissemination of policy-relevant knowledge. Ministers read and commented upon the laws of God and of the English monarchs. They shared with their congregants the best available (usually scriptural) authorities concerning why, say, one was not to fight with one's neighbors or steal one's friend's wife, but was to attend church, teach one's children the Catechism and the alphabet, and pay one's taxes to the crown, colony, and town. As a way of introducing a definition of policy-relevant knowledge, this example may seem off point and diversionary. But it isn't. The example should suggest that the generation and dissemination of policy-relevant is not a new phenomenon. In a form suited to the media of public communication of any given era, policy-relevant has existed certainly for centuries --and more likely for millennia. Regardless of form and mode of diffusion, policy-relevant is information that is certified or warranted by some authority--the Bible, a king, an inventor, a blue-ribbon committee, a panel of scientists. It is also styled to be convincing--owing to the significance of the setting which it is purveyed, the gravitas of the person delivering or endorsing the information, and the respect accorded those issuing the pronouncement. Policy-relevant differs from scientific that it has been purposefully formatted to influence the views of other people. And it differs from such nonscientific as intuition that it has been tested and vouched for by those who are deemed to be in the know. So, to become policy relevant, must first be solid or apparently trustworthy, and then it must be translated into forms purposefully organized to influence, convince, and persuade. Policy-relevant is what I have called knowledge transformed ways that are intended to influence policy makers. For practitioners of education, such usable comes the form of evidence-based texts, tests, and teaching materials. For policy makers education, usable comes an infinite variety of formats, from a very large universe of profit and nonprofit institutions, and from a vast army of well-educated, hard-driving policy analysts, publicists, lobbyists, and advocates. …