Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching. Purpose/Objective: Good, after…

Background/Context: In many countries, there are multiple studies intended to improve initial teacher education. These have generally focused on pieces of teacher education rather than wholes, and have used an underlying linear logic. It may be, however, that what is needed are new research questions and theoretical frameworks that account for…

Context: Generalization is a critical concept in all research designed to generate knowledge that applies to all elements of a unit (population) while studying only a subset of these elements (sample). Commonly applied criteria for generalizing focus on experimental design or representativeness of samples of the population of units. The criteria…

Background/Context: Teach For America (TFA) affiliates with universities in most of its 40 regions nationally; however, few researchers intentionally study the content and processes of a partnership between TFA and a college of education. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: To ensure that investments both organizations were making had a…

Background: In anthropology and related disciplines, the term "assessment" refers to the everyday activities of ordinary people as they figure out what to do next given what others have just done. The assessments, in turn, constitute what is happening, whether in encounters between policeman and person in the street, or classroom lesson,…

Background: Much is still unknown or unclear about how and where validity issues arise in high stakes testing situations in education, and ways by which we can rectify validity problems in practice and policy contexts. Purpose: This paper is the Foreword to the Special Section in the "Teachers College Record," titled, "When…

Background/Context: In this essay, I propose a design research agenda that braids equity research and technology research in education. More specifically, I propose that researchers join educators, youth, families, and community partners in tackling a central challenge for education research today: figuring out how and when low-cost and…

Background/Context: This paper is in dialogue with critical policy scholarship that has developed a certain consensus about what neoliberalism is and what its impact has been on recent education policy. A substantial part of the paper comprises a synthesis of recent German scholarship on neoliberal education policies in that country.…

Context: Over the past 15 years, a philosophical renaissance has emerged within the educational research literature, raising conundrums about the nature of knowledge and how to acquire it. To date, such philosophical conundrums have not been directly posed in relation to pedagogical research, particularly our understanding of what constitutes…

Context: Policy makers have long used policy tools to influence various components of the education system. The passage of No Child Left Behind increased the federal role and the focus on student outcome measures. This change in the policy environment can affect not only teachers and teaching but researchers and research on teaching as well.…

Background/Context: There historically exists significant epistemological and political tension within the field of curriculum studies. Further, although there is some application of standpoint theory in educational research generally, and little used within curriculum studies specifically, much of it is undertheorized at best and, in many cases,…

Background/Context: Learning to meet students' needs challenges new teachers often focused on procedures, management, materials, and curriculum. To avoid this development pattern, student teachers (STs) need opportunities to concentrate especially on needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Teacher inquiry (TI) holds promise…

Background/Context: Over the past decade, scholars of teaching and teacher education have concluded that the field lacks a common conceptual vocabulary to undergird systematic investigation of practice. Absent a shared language, we can neither articulate common questions nor establish common tools--essential elements for building knowledge and…

This commentary on the special issue on data use highlights the distinctions between data systems intended to improve the performance of school staff and those intended to hold schools and districts accountable for outcomes. It advises researchers to be alert to the differences in the policy logics connected with each approach.

This commentary frames the importance of the topic of this special issue by highlighting the changes that have occurred in school systems around data use, particularly in large urban districts, and the need for a more rigorous evidence base. Collectively, the articles in this volume provide a jumping-off point for such a research agenda around…