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Evidence-Based Education Policies: Transforming Educational Practice and Research

Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk at Johns Hopkins University, 200 W. Towsontown Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21204-5200; rslavin{at}SuccessForAll.net. His research interests include comprehensive school reform, cooperative learning, evidence-based policy, and school and classroom organization.

At the dawn of the 21st century, educational research is finally entering the 20th century. The use of randomized experiments that transformed medicine, agriculture, and technology in the 20th century is now beginning to affect educational policy. This article discusses the promise and pitfalls of randomized and rigorously matched experiments as a basis for policy and practice in education. It concludes that a focus on rigorous experiments evaluating replicable programs and practices is essential to build confidence in educational research among policymakers and educators. However, new funding is needed for such experiments and there is still a need for correlational, descriptive, and other disciplined inquiry in education. Our children deserve the best educational programs, based on the most rigorous evidence we can provide.

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