What Does the Research Say?

How school boards can support a culture of using research for decision-making

Research can't offer a precise guide to every decision a teacher, principal, district leader, or board member needs to make. Still, it can provide a broader perspective on the important decisions under consideration, writes contributor Lucas Bernays Held.

March 14, 2025

In rural Union, Mississippi, when Superintendent Tyler Hansford wanted to see if he could nudge third grade reading scores higher—they were above the state average but still not where he wanted them to be—he turned to the research on reading, first absorbing it and then sharing it with the school board. The board’s decision: greater attention to phonics, and an expanded early learning program, which a review of research by reading expert Jeanne Wanzek of Vanderbilt University found yields “positive outcomes for early struggling readers.”

In Connecticut, when David Peniston, a member of the Glastonbury Public Schools board of education, wanted to persuade his colleagues to support more slots for out-of-district students under the state’s Open Choice Program, he did what any insurance executive might do: He went for the data. They showed that compared to surrounding communities, the Hartford suburb was enrolling fewer Open Choice students. In response, the district doubled the number of slots.

And in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, district leaders transformed summer learning from a remedial program to one designed to stem summer learning loss, using a key finding from a national study: For academic gains, students need five to six weeks of programming with 90 minutes of math and two hours of English Language Arts per day.

The three examples illustrate what experts say is progress toward a longstanding goal of federal and, increasingly, state policy: Encouraging greater use of research in district decision-making.

Why should boards care? Rob Salley, chair of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, and an authority in education policy based at the research firm WestEd,  explains that “research helps to inform decision, helps members understand the possibilities, lessons learned, what other districts have had challenges with along the way. It gives you a kind of broader perspective about an opportunity, issue, or action the board can take.”

A broader view of research use

Salley’s description reflects a nuanced view of what research use looks like that has emerged over decades of research. The older view reflected a medical model: like doctors, educators should simply employ evidence-based interventions or “what works.” While that remains important, increasingly, analysts see research use as a broarder process of thoughtful integration, “interactive, and iterative. It involves people individually and collectively engaging with research over time, bringing their own and their organization’s goals, motivations, routines, and political contexts with them,” as noted in the 2014 book Using Research Evidence in Education: From the Schoolhouse Door to Capitol Hill (edited by Kara S. Finnigan, and Alan J. Daly).

Why? Research can’t offer a precise guide to every single decision a teacher, principal, district leader, or board member faces. Schools are complicated and varied organizations. What works in a large district might need to be adapted to a smaller one, or not be relevant at all. These varied conditions alter the simple question of “what works” to more complicated ones: “Will it work here, for whom, and if so, what will it require us to do to make it work?”

In addition, research use turns out to be broader than originally thought, infused through different phases of decision-making. As researcher William Penuel put it in a 2018 study of three districts: “District leaders across the three districts paint a picture of their jobs as ones where research plays a role in a wide variety of activities but not in the ways that most policymakers imagine. Instead of using research evidence to make decisions about what programs and practices to adopt, they say they use research evidence for a much wider range of purposes. District leaders learn from research, help others learn from research, and lean on research to help guide their selection, adaption, implementation, and defense of policies, programs, and initiatives.” In other words, as chart 1 shows, educators use research to choose between programs and for other purposes, as well.

A larger study, the 2022 Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) with more than 4,000 respondents, led by Elizabeth Farley-Ripple at the University of Delaware, bore this out. It finds research being used for everything from identifying problems to challenging programs that may not be paying off for young people. (See chart 2.)

But the SEE-S study also showed substantial variations in use. And some experts, like Kara Finnigan at the University of Michigan, conclude that “research evidence still plays a limited role in the decision-making of central office staff, local school boards, principals, and practitioners, with other types of evidence being used more frequently.” Given that external research is rarely used alone, and usually is paired with local data, it’s not clear what the “right” level of research use is. But it is clear that research use begins with “an organization’s ability to value external knowledge,” and is affected by prior knowledge along with opportunities and time for staff to learn from research, according to Mindy Crain-Dorough, a professor of educational leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University.

What boards can do: ASK WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS

Boards can help value external knowledge by promoting a culture of inquiry, says Mark Rickinson, associate professor and acting associate dean for research in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. “Quality use of research does not happen in a vacuum but needs supportive school leadership, culture, and infrastructure. And so, ask questions about how we as a school and a board are fostering the development of not only the structures and processes to enable staff to engage with evidence, but also the ethos and values to make this a cultural norm, and the leadership and commitment to demonstrate and promote its significance.”

Ask about credible evidence, and gently probe for specifics, urges Rob Asen, a professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He describes a board discussion in which dueling opponents each cited only vague references to research without anyone citing a specific study, making it impossible to have a productive conversation.

Michael Casserly, who served 29 years as executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools and is the author of the 2024 book, The Enduring Promise of America’s Great City Schools, says the phrase “research-based” has been cheapened. He urges boards to ask: “What research? Can you give us a summary of it? This is not micromanaging. It’s good governance.”

The question should apply to potential contractors, as well, says Meredith Honig, professor of educational policy, organizations and leadership at the College of Education at the University of Washington. She suggests asking: “What is the evidence that something like this could work in our context? At what point is it meaningful to judge whether something is a success? And, what is your exit strategy, that is, how are you building our capacity to do the work ourselves after you leave?”

At the same time, Hansford says, timing is everything. Time is scarce for both district staff and board members, access to research isn’t always easy, and summaries take time. He suggests board members ask “What does the research say?” in advance of board meetings—and, ideally, at a meeting before the board makes a decision. In sharing findings, he follows two rules: If one board member asks, every member hears the response. And, he adds, “when you are sharing research, it is important to make the board aware of research that goes the other way. If something is not going to be cupcakes and rainbows, they need to have that knowledge.”

Casserly’s suggestion to beat the time crunch: Schedule workshop sessions to help board members learn about an issue in depth outside the pressure of a decision-making discussion. These sessions, Salley of the Baltimore City board notes, can be designed as part of a board’s learning agenda for the year that should align with district priorities—one separate from a member’s individual learning agenda.

‘What can we learn from other districts?’

Sami Al-Abdrabbuh, a member of the Corvallis, Oregon, school board and immediate past president of the Oregon School Boards Association, notes that board members sit at the intersection of the community and the professional staff, making them both delegates, “the voice of the people,” and trustees, “making decisions about what is best for the people.” At times, hewing to research means explaining why something unpopular may still be vital for teaching and learning.

But Al-Abdrabbuh, an engineering professor and a member of the National School Boards Association Board of Directors, sees the use of research as a unifying force. “Wherever I go around the nation and Oregon, we have board members who have different expertise and lives—from former educators to cowboys, carpenters, and professors. They all have the passion to make better decisions for children, and wherever they go, they are keen on learning ‘how can I do better and what can we learn from other districts about what is working?’”

Four questions to help judge research quality

Will Jordan, a research officer at The Wallace Foundation focusing on education leadership and a board member
of Big Picture Philadelphia —which runs two Philadelphia high schools—suggests these questions to help assess
research quality.

Do the authors describe how they reached their findings? Serious research will always include not only the findings, but a description (or “methodology”) of how they were arrived at—for example, how many districts or schools (and what size) were studied, over what time period, and how was success measured; or, if it’s a review of research, how many studies were included.

Do the authors discuss limitations and counterarguments? Noting limitations, counterarguments, or alternative explanations signals that researchers have thought carefully about what they are seeing.

Do the claims match the findings? If a study has looked at only one school, that could be useful, but broad generalizations about nationwide trends may not be justified.

Are the publisher and author trustworthy? When a study appears in a peer-reviewed journal it has been reviewed by knowledgeable experts, which is a good sign. Also credible: nonpartisan research organizations like RAND, universities, foundations committed to funding independent research, and government agencies like the National Comprehensive Center Network or What Works Clearinghouse.

Both Jordan and Honig add that different kinds of research have different strengths and limitations:

A case study of a single school can illuminate decision-making in a particular context.

A five-year study of half a dozen districts gives more confidence that conclusions can be generalized.

Literature reviews (and meta-analyses which synthesize data, usually on outcomes) answer the question “What do we know about this topic?”

In-depth interviews reveal how interviewees think about an issue.

A carefully done survey can measure how common different attitudes are within a group.

In other words, different kinds of research can answer different kinds of questions. And quality use of research—as Rickinson notes—means both using sound research and using it appropriately. 

Four ways that research can contribute to board discussions

A clear finding from a decade of study on research use in education is that its use takes many forms. Here are some of the most common, with examples.

To better understand a problem. Want to better understand what could help teacher retention? You might want to check out the survey from the RAND Corporation: Larger Pay Increases and Adequate Benefits Could Improve Teacher Retention: Findings from the 2024 State of the American Teacher Survey | https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-13.html. At the same time, if you think teacher retention is solely about salaries, Matthew Kraft’s article gives a fuller account: The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century | https://edworkingpapers.com/ai22-679. A separate paper, Teaching Shortages: A Unifying Framework for Understanding and Predicting Vacancies, suggests shortages are highly localized | https://edworkingpapers.com/ai22-684

To identify a solution. If your district wants to boost student well-being, it would be harder to find a better guide to programs than the research-based guide Navigating Social and Emotional Learning from the Inside Out by Harvard researcher Stephanie Jones | https://doi.org/10.59656/YD-OS7616.001

To advocate for or against an issue. Are your colleagues reluctant to invest in school principals? A 2021 literature review—How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research—finding principals play a crucial role in school success could help you make a case or persuade colleagues that principals are not simply the “keeper of the keys.” | https://doi.org/10.59656/EL-SB1065.001. Similarly, if there is a debate about the value to students of having at least one same-race teacher, The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers should help resolve any doubt | https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20190573

To guide design and implementation. If your district is looking to summer learning to help students make up ground lost in the pandemic, research conducted by RAND for The Wallace Foundation shows that for academic benefits, programs should be 5-6 weeks long and provide 20 hours a week of academics. Getting to Work on Summer Learning Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd ed. | https://doi.org/10.7249/RR366-1

For additional information on the references in this article, see the Resource List for What Does the Research Say? in the Online Only section https://www.nsba.org/resources/asbj