write a summary (th)

Educational Researcher, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 142 –148 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X16639041 © 2016 AERA. http://er.aera.net

142 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER

I t was not until Richard Shavelson’s 1988 presidential address that the words policy or politics appeared in the title, and they have been scarce in subsequent addresses, appearing only in

the title of Linda Darling-Hammond’s in 1996 and in Lorraine M. McDonnell’s in 2009.1 Yet earlier AERA presidents also commented on education policy and politics research in their addresses. In doing so, they reflected the political and intellec- tual times in which they served, though several were quite pre- scient in presenting ideas several decades before they emerged on policy agendas or in public discourse. Not surprisingly, the remarks of early presidents focused on local school district gov- ernance and finance because most authoritative decisions about schools were made at that level prior to the 1960s. However, as the federal government and the states assumed a more promi- nent role in education, these levels were reflected in presidential addresses. But a more significant and dominant theme over AERA’s history has been the shifting and often uneasy relation- ship between research and education policy. Presidents have expressed faith in both as resources to improve elementary and secondary education. Still that faith, expressed most strongly in the early years, has been mixed with strong doses of skepticism and caution.

This essay focuses on the addresses of eight AERA presidents that were delivered between 1923 and 2009. They were selected because at least part of their content deals with education poli- tics or policy. Only two were drawn from the first 50 years of the Association because the topic was not prominent on education research agendas at that time. A few other addresses in this early period dealt with research related to education administration

on issues, such as school budgeting, capital construction, and equipment acquisition.2 However, the overwhelming majority focused on curriculum, teaching, and testing—topics that reflected the training and research expertise of early presidents (for a discus- sion of their professional backgrounds, see Cuban, this issue, pp. 134–141; Shepard, this issue, pp. 112–121). The later addresses are from the 1960s (two), the 1980s (two), the 1990s (one) and one from the first decade of the 21st century.3 Part of the reason that more addresses focused on policy in the latter period is that public education, which had traditionally operated almost com- pletely within the purview of professional educators, came to be influenced more and more by elected officials. That shift resulted in a broadening of the scope of education research, expanding from a focus on schools and classrooms to how policy is designed and implemented and its effects on educators and students. AERA presidential addresses in the modern period have largely reflected the research interests and experience of those delivering them. So not surprisingly, as the field of research on education extended to include politics and policy, so have the interests and training of those elected to lead the Association.4

The Early Years

During the Association’s first decades, presidents used the occasion of their addresses to summarize major trends in education research over the past year and to report on the findings (Mershon & Schlossman, 2008). They were doing so at a time when the

639041EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X16639041Educational ResearcherMcDonnell research-article2016

1University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

Evolving Research Perspectives on Education Politics and Policy Lorraine M. McDonnell1

The eight presidential addresses included in this essay, delivered between 1923 and 2009, focus wholly or partly on education politics and policy. Although they reflect their different intellectual and social times, they share a dominant theme in documenting the shifting and uneasy relationship between research and education policy. Presidents have expressed faith in both as resources to achieve an equal and democratic education for all children. Still that faith, expressed most strongly in the early years, has been mixed with strong doses of skepticism and caution.

Keywords: education policy; politics; research utilization

FEATURE ARTICLES

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influence of the Progressive Era was still evident (for a discussion of Progressive Era ideas in earlier AERA presidents’ speeches, see Cuban, this issue). As Ellen Lagemann (2000, p. 72) notes in her history of education research, professors of education and school administrators shared an interest in applying scientific methods to the problems of educational administration. This focus was reflected in references in a number of early presidential addresses to “research workers” who constituted the primary audience for their remarks.5

For example, in his 1923 address, W.W. Theisen, an assistant superintendent of the Milwaukee schools and one of the school district research bureau directors who helped establish AERA, summarized trends in research on the testing movement, statisti- cal methods, and curriculum strategies. He then turned to research on school administration, lamenting that “less attention has been given by research workers to large problems of admin- istration than such problems deserve” (Theisen, 1923, p. 308). Citing another researcher, Theisen then argued that:

. . . we are too much inclined to devote our energies to the minutiae of measurement while the decision in regard to grave issues is left to opinion and personal bias. Some have very little opportunity for research in the administrative field, but many of us seem to have assumed either that administrative problems are too difficult to permit any appreciable progress or that the facts will not be used when found. It smacks of the attitude of the small boy who feels that the water is too cold or that he does not need a bath. Superintendents and board members are anxious to know the relative merits of this, that, or the other system; how much each will cost to operate over a given period of years; or what the educational effect of each will be. (p. 308)

Theisen then went on to note areas, such as the length of the school day and year, that were guided by tradition because research could not provide assurances about which options were most effective. He noted that “demonstrable evidence is needed as the relative efficiency of various forms of organization” and reported on research that found a relationship between the rela- tive efficiency of school districts and the method by which school board members were chosen and the degree of district fiscal independence (Theisen, 1923, p. 309). This early focus on gov- erning institutions was heavily influenced by Progressive Era preferences for institutional arrangements that minimized politi- cal influence over schools. Somewhat ironically, it is a topic that was sidelined in later research even as public education became more politicized. Theisen also called for careful attention to accurate cost research, and “methods of securing more equitable distribution of funds” with the “hope that a more scientific con- trol of school finances will develop” (Theisen, 1923, p. 310). At the same time as he identified areas where more and better research was needed, Theisen also expressed confidence in the ultimate outcome of such efforts. He concluded:

The chief service of contributions in the field of educational research up to the present time has undoubtedly been in pointing out problems and methods of approach. We are not yet ready to accept the conclusions of research studies as final. We are not always satisfied that the answer found is correct. Very few, if any, lines of investigation have been carried to their logical conclusion. Nevertheless, we are finding how to arrive at the truth. (p. 314)

In reading the early addresses, one is struck by how similar the research topics on which the first presidents focused are to issues that engage researchers today. As a result, the modern reader cannot but be impressed by the early attention they brought to conditions that undermine an equal and effective education for all students, while at the same time express dismay over how long it often takes for policy problems and potential solutions to reach governmental decision agendas. One example is an article authored by John K. Norton, the 1927–1928 AERA president and director of the National Education Association’s research division, in which he echoed a theme that would later define school finance policy.6 More than four decades later, the Serrano decision and other state finance cases sought to equalize school funding based on the prem- ise that the quality of students’ education should not be based on the property wealth of the community in which they reside.

Norton focused on unequal spending across states rather than local districts within a state, and he lacked the benefit of multi- variate statistical analysis in determining the factors that predict a state’s ability to support education. Nevertheless, he high- lighted research themes and normative assumptions that were reflected in the concept of wealth neutrality, a policy idea that animated later finance equalization decisions. Taking into con- sideration each state’s per capita income and taxable property wealth, Norton (1927) concluded:

In the poorer states the people have two alternatives. They must accept tax rates from three to six times as high as those in the richer states, or they must be content with school facilities costing from one-third to one-sixth as much as those provided by the more fortunate states. (p. 89)

He then argued that unless residents of the poorer states accepted this additional tax effort:

. . . the educational opportunity offered the children of some states is destined to continue to be, as at present, much inferior to that guaranteed in others. Such a condition is not only contrary to the ideal of an equal opportunity for all, but more important, offers a real threat to our orderly development. (p. 90)

In concluding, he hypothesized that “under the present organiza- tion for the financial support of schools, the education offered the children of some states is bound to be much inferior to that offered children of other states” (p. 97). Norton noted that although “vari- ous escapes from the effect” had been suggested, they had not yet been evaluated. Nevertheless, he used research to define a policy problem that still challenges the notion of equal educational opportunity in the United States. Even after decades of court cases leading to greater equalization across school districts within some states, a taxation system based on property wealth and varying levels of tax effort among different states and localities continues to create significant disparities in students’ learning opportunities depending on the districts and states in which they reside.

New Expectations for Policy and Research

The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as one of the major War on Poverty programs came at a

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time when little was known about how to improve education through federal policy (Lagemann, 2000). Yet hopes were high that social science research could enhance that knowledge base. This call to action was reflected in Benjamin Bloom’s 1966 presi- dential address on the occasion of AERA’s 50th anniversary:

An even more telling reason for stock taking arises from the new faith in education and the new tasks thrust on it. Education is looked to for solutions to problems of poverty, racial discord, crime and delinquency, urban living, peace, and even for the problems arising from affluence. The new tasks thrust on education require new approaches, new understandings, and a closer relation between theory, research, and practice than has ever existed before. It is not likely that education will be able to provide all the solutions that are expected of it. However, if solutions are found, they are likely to be based on research and development. Compensatory education for the disadvantaged is a case in point. Educational solutions must be found for these children—solutions which depend on more than the dedicated teacher working by himself. The educational researcher cannot ignore such problems, and he must contribute to the creation of solutions. (p. 212)

Bloom (1966) then summarized what he saw as the method- ological and substantive contributions of education research over the past 25 years. However, he concluded that of the 70,000 studies listed in the Review of Educational Research over that period, he only regarded 70 as crucial, and he argued that many more were needed but that this goal could be met if researchers were willing and proper research strategies were available (p. 218). He recommended that academics devote more time to research, the training and qualifications of “educa- tional research workers” be improved, rapid communication among those working on similar topics be enhanced, and strong inference analytical methods be developed to decrease redun- dancy in education research.

This same combination of criticism and hope for more sig- nificant contributions from education research was echoed in David Krathwohl’s 1969 presidential address in which he argued for the establishment of the National Institutes of Education (NIE), modeled on the National Institutes of Health. Krathwohl, who was the dean of the School of Education at Syracuse University, began his address with the premise that “as soon as we can show worthwhile returns from educational research, there will follow a marked increase in its support” (p. 2). He acknowledged problems with the quality of education research but argued that the day would come when returns from it would be greater and support would increase. Krathwohl listed a number of areas (e.g., the use of new media, the effects of racial integration, the individualization of instruc- tion) where marked advances had occurred through institu- tions such as regional laboratories and university research and development (R&D) centers. At the same time, he argued that the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) model of spreading research funds widely had been inefficient and that executive branch and congressional policymakers were suggesting that some kind of focusing of effort was in order. Krathwohl main- tained that:

we need a greater integration of research both proposed and completed. We need the massing of research and development at a level that will have impact on substantial educational problems. We need a major breakthrough in support. Progress on all these fronts could result from a new constellation to administer the various steps of research development, dissemination, and installation. If we are correct in reading the signs, progress more easily will come if we focus our efforts on problem oriented target areas. (p. 15)

In his view, the solution was the establishment of NIE with a central coordinating staff working with a series of institutes, each focused on a critical education problem and drawing largely on research talent in universities and other institutions with appro- priate capabilities. Krathwohl argued that making NIE indepen- dent of USOE would bring greater stability in planning and conducting research, protect federal research funding from being absorbed into program support, and allow for the vertical and horizontal integration of research on pressing policy problems. His example was urban education where sociologists, psycholo- gists, economists, political scientists, and education researchers could work together, with the research they produced finding a ready clientele not only in schools but also among grassroots organizations that would serve as both sources of advice for researchers and an audience for their findings.

Maturing Expectations and Greater Acknowledgment of Politics

By the time of Richard Shavelson’s presidential address in 1988, research that could inform education policy had increased in volume and quality. NIE was established in 1972 at the urging of Krathwohl and others and through the efforts of former Congressmember John Brademas (D-IN). However, it was disbanded in 1985, and its func- tions folded into the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education.7 Nevertheless, even with modest federal and foundation funding, advances had been made in transferring basic research from areas such as cognitive science into applications for classroom teaching and learning, and applied research on the links between policy and practice had resulted in deeper and more systematic knowledge about implementation processes and the conditions under which policy shapes educational outcomes (Lagemann, 2000). Equally important were studies by researchers such as Carol Weiss that developed a more nuanced and realistic understanding of how policymakers and practitioners use research-based evidence (e.g., Weiss, 1977; Weiss & Bucuvalas, 1980).

In his speech, Shavelson (1988) drew on both these advances in research. He argued that education research contributes to policy and practice “by helping to construct, by challenging, and by changing the way policymakers and practitioners view par- ticular problems” (p. 4). At the same time, he noted that “the assumption that educational research should have a direct and immediate application to policy or practice rests on many unre- alistic conditions” (p. 5). Shavelson explained that this assump- tion was problematic for several reasons: It ignores that research is context and time dependent, implies that the scientific knowl- edge base should prescribe action, and that policymakers and

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practitioners would act on such knowledge if it were available. “Yet education research cannot depoliticize education decision- making” (p. 6).

As an example of research that helped change how a policy problem is represented, Shavelson (1988) drew on a project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, that he and sev- eral RAND colleagues were undertaking at that time to design an education indicator system. The change that this and other indicator projects (e.g., Blank, 1993; Murnane & Raizen, 1988) was prompting in policymakers’ thinking was to move away from a conception of indicators as individual statistics presented in a time series to viewing them as part of a comprehensive and integrated system “that could relate outcomes such as achieve- ment and participation rates to inputs and processes” (p. 7). Advances in past research on school organization, teaching and learning, and curriculum were essential to this effort. “Without an extensive research literature, we wouldn’t have made it to first base” (p. 7).

Equally critical were interviews and discussions with policy- makers and practitioners to identify their information needs. Not surprisingly, their expectations for an indicator system far exceeded what could be reliably and validly delivered, especially in their hopes for an all-purpose tool that could monitor the state of education, evaluate program effects, and provide an accountability mechanism. In response, the researchers had to stress that at best indicator systems can only “paint a broad pic- ture of the condition of education and stimulate thinking about potentially effective policies” (Shavelson, 1988, p. 8).

Shavelson (1988) concluded by acknowledging that most education research bears on theory and a particular line of empirical inquiry as it should and that there is no reason to rush out and be relevant. “Not only might we fail miserably, we would be caught up in a whirlwind of topical issues” (p. 10). However, if researchers claim that their studies can contribute to policy or practice, Shavelson argued that those findings or recommenda- tions should fit within and inform the mind frames of policy- makers and practitioners.

As the scope of policy expanded over the next 20 years and education became more politicized, it was increasingly impor- tant that researchers understand the mind frames of policy- makers, while at the same time examining systematically the relationship between the politics of education policy and the institutions that formulate and implement that policy. As expec- tations for the role education could play in addressing a range of social and economic problems increased, the Progressive Era dic- tum that politics should be kept out of education had long been abandoned. Nevertheless, vestiges of that separation between education governance and other political institutions persisted into the 21st century. However, those distinctions were also becoming blurred. Jeffrey Henig (2013) documents this change as general purpose institutional actors such as governors and mayors, with their enhanced authority and resources, have eclipsed single purpose institutions such as local school boards. Yet even as education policy became more directive and was moving into the mainstream of national, state, and local politics, its effectiveness was hampered by implementation through a large and loosely jointed governance system. As David Cohen and James Spillane (1992) argue:

While the design of American government incarnates a deep distrust of state power, the design of most education policy expressed an abiding hope for the power of government and a wish to harness it to social problem solving. . . . The collisions between rapidly expanded policy-making and fragmented governance are a hallmark of U.S. education. (pp. 7 and 11)

In her 2009 presidential address, Lorraine M. McDonnell spoke to these two themes: understanding the profoundly altered politics of education and focusing research on “the system by which education is governed and services delivered to students” (p. 418). Borrowing the concept of policy feedback from politi- cal science, McDonnell argued that although analysts had incor- porated political variables into their models to explain education policy formation, they had largely ignored how the causal arrow is subsequently reversed. When policies are implemented, they produce political dynamics as individuals interpret those policies and vested interests mobilize to support or oppose them. A pol- icy feedback model directs researchers’ attention to the institu- tional rules embedded in policy design that determine who can participate in decisions about its operations and how resources are allocated. These rules create incentives for which interests are likely to mobilize. At the individual level, policies also send strong signals to their targets—especially educators, parents, and students—about how they are valued by their fellow citizens and what their educational rights and responsibilities are. Together these factors constitute the feedback that either reinforces or weakens existing policy and can influence the politics and design of future policy.

In her address, McDonnell (2009) drew on extant research in applying the policy feedback model to several current policies, including standards-based accountability and school finance equalization. Her practical reason for doing so was to illustrate that such empirical research would allow scholars to assess more systematically the political sustainability of different reforms as a means of informing future policy design and to shine a stronger empirically based spotlight on the continuing lack of attention to the institutions governing U.S. public education. Her particu- lar concern was the diminished capacities of local school boards—even as policy and the education delivery system have become more complex. McDonnell also offered a normative rationale for why a different take on the study of education poli- tics was needed:

. . . Schools are critical democratic institutions. How they are governed, who participates, how resources are allocated, and who benefits from these resources have long-term consequences far beyond individual school systems because they shape the future of democratic citizenship . . . we have a responsibility to question what kinds of politics education policies are creating and to use our research-based knowledge in ensuring that the politics that today’s policies create lead to more enlightened and effective policies in the future. (pp. 418 and 423)

Focusing on the Democratic Purposes of Education

Despite the hopes of educational administrators at the time of AERA’s founding—and echoed by many of their counterparts

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today—that education could be divorced from politics, they remain tightly wedded. In his essay “Education as Politics,” the education historian Lawrence Cremin (1990) reminds us of Aristotle’s dictum:

It is impossible to talk about education apart from a conception of the good life; people will inevitably differ in their conception of the good life, and hence they will inevitably differ on matters of education; therefore the discussion of education falls squarely within the domain of politics. (pp. 103–104)

This normative vision of education and politics has been espe- cially compelling in the United States because the original ratio- nale for public schooling was the preparation of democratic citizens who could preserve individual freedom and engage in responsible self-government. For the nation’s founders, public schools were to serve democratic purposes not only in how they educated students but also in how they were organized and gov- erned (McDonnell, 2000).

Several AERA presidents have harkened back to these demo- cratic purposes of schooling. In her 1982 address, the philosopher of education Maxine Greene (1982) reminded her audience of the role of public education in creating “an authentic public space, one that might give rise to a significant common world” (p. 4). At the same time, she lamented the lack of attention to the public realm:

There is no space where human beings, speaking and acting in their plurality, can appear before each another and realize the power they have in simply being together. And there surely is not such space in most of the schools. Nor is there the freedom experienced when young persons discover that they have the capacity to reach out and attain feelings, thoughts, and ways of being, hitherto unimagined—and even, perhaps, ways of acting on what they believe to be deficient, ways of transcending and going beyond. (p. 6)

In an analysis that continues to ring true more than 30 years later, Greene defined the problem:

Popular assent, once sought through public meetings and dialogue, is now generated by various kinds of media productions: by the manipulation of images; by what is presented as social scientific certainty, or stark “rationality,” or the results of a policy analysis so tight and logical it cannot be questioned by the layperson. . . . The layperson is spectator, consumer, audience, and audiences are not consulted, anymore than consumers are. (p. 5)

Greene called upon historical examples, such as protestors speak- ing out in the Gdansk shipyard, activists marching during the U.S. civil rights movement, and French villagers deciding to hide Jewish refugees from the Nazis, when men and women cre- ated a common world to preserve freedom and human dignity.

She then argued that “the implications for classrooms seem to me to be manifold” (p. 7). For Greene, education that can bring into being a common world starts when students are motivated to learn because they are in a position to explain themselves through speaking to others, they expect to be listened to, and they become listeners of those who are different from themselves. This type of civic learning occurs through scientific reflection on the human

experience, by imagination released and opportunities found for the arts, and above all, in classrooms that open new perspectives so that:

. . . young people will be enabled to look out beyond the actual and the given and summon into being alternative worlds. I want to see alienation and fixity give way to participation and movement, the free play of thought, all for the sake of the common world. (p. 9)

In her 1996 presidential address, Linda Darling-Hammond built on the perspective outlined in Greene’s address and on the views of other theorists of democratic education including W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Jefferson, and John Dewey. Her start- ing point was the sizable gap between expectations for what democratic education should offer students and the capacity of schools to do so because “most schools are poor places in which to learn democracy” (p. 6). Of particular concern to Darling- Hammond was the unequal distribution of educational resources leading to unequal learning opportunities, the social stratifica- tion of students within and across schools resulting from segre- gation by race/ethnicity and income, and the pressing need for more effective teaching that differs from “what has been the norm for most of this century” (p. 7).

As an expert on teacher policy, Darling-Hammond (1996) focused her address on the critical role of teachers in achieving the goals of democratic education. In doing so, she considered how schools are governed and organized as setting the conditions for civic education. Drawing on several decades of research, Darling- Hammond argued that teaching and school organization neces- sary to sustain the conditions for implementing the reform mantra of “all children can learn” “cannot be accomplished by top-down mandates or teacher-proof curricula of the sort most policies have relied upon throughout this century” (p. 8). Teachers need to develop a sophisticated knowledge of teaching and learn- ing, school organization, and educational change. Consequently, policy in support of developing such knowledge would need to reflect in its design relevant research and the realities of teachers’ practice. Of particular importance, in Darling-Hammond’s view, is sufficient investment in professional education that reflects what teachers and schools need to learn to implement reforms, and that extends beyond a limited number of highly successful schools to systems full of such schools. She stressed that effective teaching policies cannot be based on a uniform set of teaching behaviors. They must allow for context-specific solutions that emerge through shared decision-making structures. With regard to governance, Darling-Hammond argued the following:

It is clear that ordinary schools can succeed in extraordinary ways when they refocus their work on the needs of students rather than the demands of bureaucracies . . . schools like those we study exist in constant tension with the central offices and state agencies that oversee a regulatory system invented for a different time and a different set of educational purposes. Creating widespread change will require an infrastructure for adaptive learning-centered education: policies that develop more intelligent professional preparation; that support appropriate teaching, learning, and assessment practices; and that provide educators with continuous opportunities to learn and with the resources to enable them. (p. 14)

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Conclusion

The eight AERA presidential addresses included in this article are products of their intellectual and social time and come at different periods in the United States’ fitful journey toward an equal and democratic education for all its children. Nevertheless, several themes emerge that transcend their time and that con- tinue to pose challenges for research and policy today.

Maxine Greene’s speech reminds us that even those of us who conduct empirical research need to keep in mind the nor- mative values that define a democratic education but that are often contested. These purposes, whether about the public space and collective goods or individual achievement, consti- tute the values that underlie most major education policies. Consequently, unless researchers understand those purposes— the disparate ways they have been framed in political discourse and the assumptions they make about how those goals might be achieved in policy—the research community cannot ade- quately explain the emergence of different policies or assess their effectiveness.

One of the most enduring values with significant policy implications is equal educational opportunity and its corollary assumption about the equitable distribution of resources. As John Norton demonstrated more than 80 years ago, researchers can use different normative and empirical standards in defining this policy problem and in analyzing the political and educa- tional feasibility of different remedies. The fact that McDonnell included school finance equalization as one of the cases in her 2009 address illustrates both the long-standing barriers to equi- table learning opportunities and the imperative that researchers pay attention to the competing interests and ideas that animate fiscal and other education policies and to the multiple institu- tional venues that share authority over them.

Another value evident in several presidential addresses is one that is not typically viewed as part of democratic education. Yet the question of how the schools should be governed and who should make decisions about their operations has long been a source of tension in education policy. Linda Darling-Hammond’s criticism of policymakers’ efforts to limit teachers’ professional autonomy through control of curriculum and teaching echoes the admonitions of early 20th-century reformers and AERA presidents of that time who sought to professionalize educational practice by limiting what were viewed as inappropriate political interventions. Since the Progressive Era, professional expertise and democratic governance have coexisted in an uneasy truce, and balancing their respective claims represents a challenge to achieving democratic purposes. Democratic control assumes that public schools derive their legitimacy from the consent of the electorate who hold them accountable through their elected representatives. In contrast to this model of externally imposed constraints, professionalism assumes that teachers possess a spe- cialized body of knowledge applied in challenging classroom environments and based on professional standards enforced internally by peers. Research alone cannot resolve this value con- flict. However, it can identify the conditions necessary for effec- tive teaching, and it can illuminate the normative standards by which the public might judge whether their schools are governed responsively and responsibly.

From the standpoint of researchers, one mark of responsible governance is that policy aspirations are grounded in research- based evidence. Benjamin Bloom’s call for marked improve- ments in research quality was prompted partly by the escalating demands on education to solve social and economic problems. However, even as the quality and sophistication of education research have increased, the tension between it and policy aspira- tions has persisted. Richard Shavelson’s discussion of policymak- ers’ expectations for the multiple purposes that indicator systems should serve is one of a number of examples of politicians’ hopes for what a policy can accomplish exceeding current research knowledge. The myriad and widespread use of student assess- ments for purposes beyond which they have been validated is another example (Baker, 2007). Inappropriate use of tests is one of the most vexing examples because of its potentially counter- productive effects on student learning and on political consensus and as a constant reminder of the limitations of research and the often muted voice of researchers in the policy process.

The AERA presidential addresses that focused wholly or partly on education politics and policy have each provided a par- tial research agenda on those topics. However, their more conse- quential role has been to remind their audiences then and now of the limits and the promise of research in informing education policy. It is a promise never completely fulfilled but one improved upon by each generation through careful attention to our science and to the goals of democratic education.

NoTEs 1Perhaps it was only coincidental, but Shavelson, Darling-Hammond,

and McDonnell had all worked at RAND, a pioneering policy research institution, during a portion of their careers.

2Examples include Arthur B. Moehlman, the 1928–1929 presi- dent, who focused on public school accounting, and Thomas C. Holly, the 1934–1935 president, who wrote about the need for research exam- ining school buildings and equipment.

3Several other presidential addresses in the later period touched on policy topics, but they are not included in this essay because they are discussed in other articles in this issue. For example, Robert Linn, the 2002–2003 president, focused his address on testing and accountability policy in the wake of the passage of No Child Left Behind (see Baker, this issue, pp. 122–133), and Gloria Ladson-Billings questioned the notion of the “achievement gap,” an idea central to recent education reform poli- cies, and she reconceptualized the policy problem as an “education debt” (see Banks, this issue, pp. 149–158).

4As Larry Cuban notes in his essay in this issue, a number of recent AERA presidents have articulated aspirational goals in their addresses, arguing that the lives of low-income students and students of color could be greatly improved if researchers aim their studies at improving school practice and if schools become agents of social change. These addresses are not traditional policy analyses but rather critiques of existing policy regimes and recommendations for altering guiding assumptions and priorities.

5In 1921, AERA’s predecessor, the National Association of Directors of Educational Research (NADER), changed its membership rules, and “ability as a research worker” rather than one’s professional position became the eligibility standard (Lagemann, 2000, p. 94). One year later, NADER changed its name to the Educational Research Association of America, and in 1928, it became the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

6John Norton was one of the early AERA presidents whose presi- dential address has not been located. Consequently, a scholarly article

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published during his presidency has been included in the AERA archive as a substitute for his address.

7In her history of education research, Lagemann (2000) notes that although NIE’s demise was due to congressional indifference and a lack of understanding of what education research is and its value, AERA was largely silent because the educational psychologists who dominated the organization were uninterested in political lobbying. Although acknowl- edging that the blame for some of NIE’s problems could be attributed to Congress, Brademas argued that organizations with a stake in NIE, such as AERA, could have helped Congress understand its intellectual and political significance.

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AuThoR

LORRAINE M. McDONNELL is a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9420; [email protected]. Her research focuses on the politics of educa- tion policies, their design and implementation, and effects on school practice. She served as AERA president from 2008 to 2009.

Manuscript received December 3, 2015 Revision received January 29, 2016

Accepted February 2, 2016

at UNIV OF REDLANDS on May 10, 2016http://er.aera.netDownloaded from