Magazine Shares Examines

Research Tips

By Denise Jarrett Weeks

Around the Northwest, teachers and administrators want to become better consumers of research. The summer 2004 issue of Northwest Education magazine aims to help them do just that by examining the theme "The Science of Quality: Education Research in School Reform." Ten articles offer insights and tips from practitioners and researchers on how to use—and do—research, putting the principles of science to work for the advancement of education.

In a 2002 survey of 5,250 educators around the region, nearly half of all teachers, 70 percent of principals, and 65 percent of superintendents responding indicated that "more" or "much more" effort was needed to "use classroom and school-level data and educational research to improve teaching and learning."

Readers will learn about professionals along the education spectrum who are using evidence from school data and research reports to help inform their decisions about everything from teaching to textbook adoptions. Their stories reinforce the idea that, in an imperfect world, the true measure of quality can only be made by scientific instruments in the service of human judgment.

"The Science of Quality: Education Research in School Reform" will be available online at www.nwrel.org/nwedu in June.