Narrowing the gap between policy and practice.

Abstract

Narrowing the Gap Between Policy andPractice An appealing and persistent fantasy of many educational researchers is that policy change is based on empirical findings. The fantasy emerges from the analytic, rationalistic tradition, coupled with a genuine motivation by researchers to improve the state of the field. From this perspective policy should follow research, and change should be founded on evidence. Examination of major shifts in educational policy suggests quite a different scenario, however. Change results from social-political concerns, and most policy decisions precede rather than follow research. The sweeping changes in policy and practices contained in Public Law 94-142 emerged from civil rights issues and had a constitutional rather than an empirical foundation. Similarly, many of the changes proposed under the regular education initiative (REI) under derived from values and beliefs rather than from data. That policy reflects social-political conditions, and that policy change precedes research, is in many ways a good thing. Given the slow pace of research, the penchant of researchers for precision of design and rigor of analysis, and the tendency of most researchers to be cautious in inference and generalization, it seems fair to say that we will not make major progress in educational reform if we wait for comprehensive data sets to drive our decisions. Indeed, ir regard to P.L. 94-142, based on research findings it is possible that we would still be amassing data documenting how many handicapped children are not provided educational services, or determining that some psychometric assessment techniques may be biased for certain subgroups of children. There are appropriate roles for educational researchers, however, as exemplified in the programs of work discussed in this issue of Exceptional Children. These include efforts to test policy with evidence, to devise and evaluate methods of implementing policy, and to bridge the gap between policy and practice. This view of educational research does not demean the importance of the research contribution, but rather links research to social issues. There are, of course, a number of dangers in this model. Linking research to policy many diminish the importance of theoretical, more basic research> research continuity may be threatened as social issues change> policies may not address important concerns, or may ignore needed areas of work> and beliefs of policymakers may mitigate against acceptance of contrary evidence. At the same time, when focussed on educational reform, it is clear that one major responsibility of the research community is to study systematically and comprehensively the implementation of change. The other side of that coin is that policymakers must be willing to subject policy to test, and must provide support for analytic research directed at educational reform. In my view, the body of research reported here is consistent with both goals. In their introductory article, Kaufman and his associates describe the structure of a 5-year program of research initiated by the Division of Innovation and Development of the Federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). The funded projects were directed to ...investigate instructional, organizational, and administrative issues relating to educating children with disabilities in the general classroom environment. Specific priorities included enhancing instructional program options, increasing teaching/learning efficiency, and developing school building models for providing services for students with disabilities in general education settings. The major goals and the specific priorities were consistent with policy defined in P.L. 94-142 and with the regular education initiative, yet the OSERS mandates were sufficiently broad to allow individual investigate groups considerable latitude in research objectives, design, content, and procedures. …

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