Because It Gives Educators and Policymakers the Tools to Improve Education

Wearing my hats as a social science scholar and academic leader, I have studied trends in the development of science over the past 150 years. Over that time, scholarly science has focused on the continual advancement of knowledge. As such, the science produced has become more precise—theoretically and empirically—more sophisticated in its methods, more interdisciplinary, and more connected to practice and policy. To the last point, in this century science, including education research, has demonstrated a growing capacity for refining evidence-based approaches to address important issues and concerns in our schools, communities, and broader society.  

Education scholars are deeply committed to making a tangible impact on classrooms and communities across the country. Their work offers not just knowledge, but actionable solutions. It informs classroom practice, shapes district and state policies, and enhances community well-being. It ensures accountability, stimulates and guides innovation, and allows for careful assessment of which interventions truly move the needle for students. And for many years, a strong partnership among the federal government, universities, and philanthropic organizations sustained this work, fostering a national ecosystem in which research could thrive and be applied. 

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Because It Can Help Prepare Students for Employment

Future graduates face complex global challenges like climate change, as well as ethical, social and cultural implications of emerging new technologies like artificial intelligence.

The urgency of these challenges — and the complexity of skills and capabilities needed to address them — has prompted a revisiting of the role of social sciences and humanities programs in equipping students for civic engagement and as future leaders.

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Because Education and Research are Essential for Solving Crime and Justice Problems

Police agencies across America are in the hot seat. Frontline officers’ every move is scrutinized, and anything that resembles excessive force is recorded and shared on social media. Extreme acts of police violence, including wrongful shootings, garner even more attention. They make for viral videos and shocking news headlines. They spur community groups and politicians into action. In response to real and perceived police abuses, a movement is now afoot to “defund” the police. It sounds serious, implying that money should be stripped from policing budgets as punishment for law enforcement misdeeds. Proposals to defund the police, however, are much more complex and nuanced than these discussions typically let on. However, many people misunderstand what defunding entails, and relatively little research exists on which supporters can base their proposals—and in some cases, the research is ignored altogether. This is where criminal justice and criminological researchers and educators come in.

What does it mean to “defund” the police? It is not punishment. Rather, it is the reallocation or redirection of funding away from police departments to other government agencies—and possibly beyond. Defunding is not about abolishing policing, nor is it about starting over. Its concern, instead, is with the efficient allocation of public resources. It asks several questions in this regard. Should police respond to all types of 911 calls? Could they be more effective in apprehending lawbreakers if they weren’t tied up with trivial, noncriminal incidents? If money is taken from policing, where can and should it go? Other government agencies? Social service providers? Years of research shows no strong connection between police funding and crime, so perhaps it is time to rethink how the money is spent. That is the essence of the defunding movement. We might go so far as to say the term “defunding” undermines the potential of an otherwise interesting set of ideas. Defunding will struggle to get off the ground if people fail to understand what it is. Education is essential.

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Because It Is Central in Guiding Efforts to Foster Success in STEM in Our Children and Youth

The social sciences are key to informing and supporting our national priorities. One such priority is having a strong workforce in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As in the era of Sputnik, we are realizing that we need to catch up in this area. Reports like Rising Above The Gathering Storm sounded an alarm, calling for investments to foster a strong science and technology workforce in order for the United States to maintain competitiveness globally. 

Developmental science, or research on how children learn and develop, is helping to grow the roots of STEM—stimulating interest and competence in STEM in children and youth from all backgrounds in our country. The full set of social science “tools” is proving important in this effort, from looking at factors that influence and predict student achievement in large longitudinal datasets, to conducting evaluation studies looking at what works best in encouraging the roots of STEM to grow, to insights from smaller focused studies diving more deeply into mastery of specific concepts. 

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Because Social Science Informs Effective, Efficient, and Equitable Education Policies

Everybody has a connection to education: we may have taught in the classroom or be related to someone who teaches—and of course, we were all students ourselves once. This personal exposure is all too often mistaken for substantive knowledge about what constitutes effective teaching and learning. Education science—drawing from a broad range of diverse social science disciplines, including economics, psychology, sociology, and statistics—not only challenges what many policy makers, practitioners, and individuals believe about certain education practices and policies, but sometimes flat-out contradicts it. Time and again, education research has taught us how to better serve our students in and out of the classroom while more effectively targeting our limited resources.

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