Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edpolyan
Date:         Tue, 26 Jan 1993 21:54:47 MST
              <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET>
From:         Gene V Glass <ATGVG@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      A message to Mr. Secretary

       Maybe this can help start off a discussin of the Ed research
  priorities.

      One could either just start listing pet ideas or projects, or one
 could think for a moment about what makes one ed res endeavor a priority
 over another. Or, by what standard are priorites established? Or, what
 justifies one thing having higher prioity than another OERI, the research
 arm of the Dept of Ed?
      A couple of criteria come to mind: 1) priorities could be set on the
 basis of societal need (AIDS education research; educ for homeless children;
 educating children of poor single-parent families; and the like); 2) or the
 priorities could be established with respect to those areas in the scientific
 study of education that are ripe for major break-throughs (basic research on
 human cognition, studies of language development in neo-nates, and the like);
 3) or priorities could be set in terms of right visons of what education
 should be (critique of curriculum and schooling more broadly, curriculum
 research, technology development, etc); 4) or priorities could be set in
 political terms (research on teacher professionalism, including empowerment,
 action research and related movements; research on the "principalship";
 research on governmental management of schooling, and the like).

    Permit me to give an opinion about how we set the priorities.

    Education is no science. Nothing like it has ever yielded its mysteries
 to scientific investigation (and please don't tell me I'm wrong because
 social psychology or "communications" are sciences, because all I will do
 is end up losing friends who are social psychologists or communications
 scientists). There is no basic research in education worth doing. If it's
 truly basic, it will be done elsewhere. In short, basic research--lose it!
 Education is not a science; it's a debate, an argument. We should not be
 discouraged that we argue about education; that  is fundamentally what
 it is all about. This LIST educates, because people discuss ideas, values
 and the aims of schooling. Some people expect educational research to be
 like a bunch of engineers working on the fastest, cheapest and safest
 way of traveling to Chicago, when in fact it is a bunch of people arguing
 about whether to go to Chicago or St Louis. And I don't write this to
 mock educators or ourselves. The process of educating is fundamentally
 this way. It could not be otherwise.

   "Societal needs" for setting research priorities? I think I like it.

   "Political interests" as a means of defing the research agenda? I think
 I like it too. More research on teachers. Why have you never seen or heard
 of a research study on the effects of sabbaticals on teachers attitude and
 performance? Because teachers have not been defining the research agenda;
 politicians and administrators have, and so we have a jillion studies
 to prove that large classes are as good as small classes and that more
 money for education "doesn't make a difference."

   I'm tired.

-------**********======================================**********-------
GENE V GLASS                                    ATGVG at ASUACAD.BITNET
College of Education                            ATGVG at ASUACVAX.BITNET
Arizona State University       Internet Address:ATGVG@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
Tempe, AZ 85287-2411
602-965-2692
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