Nearly half of public education funding comes from state sources, making effective R&D at this level crucial for ensuring public funds support strategies that help all students thrive.
Yet, at the state level, few state education agencies (SEAs) have dedicated research staff, according to research by Results for America. When they do, these teams are key in:
Guiding the agency in using secure data for continuous improvement, learning, and data-informed decision-making;
Collaborating with agency leaders to establish learning agendas;
Conducting internal research and evaluation;
Consulting on grants;
Advising on evidence-based policy-making;
Helping internal and external stakeholders make sense of and apply data and research; and
Managing relationships with external researchers and evaluators.
For three years, Results for America has convened an informal SEA Research Workgroup, as an offshoot of our State Education Fellowship. The workgroup is a one-of-a-kind space where SEA research leads come together to connect and collaborate. Call us research and data nerds if you like, but there’s something special about the energy these peers bring to the table. We’ve built a supportive and safe space to openly share challenges, celebrate successes, and exchange valuable resources with vulnerability and trust.
Call us research and data nerds if you like, but there’s something special about the energy these peers bring to the table. We’ve built a supportive and safe space to openly share challenges, celebrate successes, and exchange valuable resources with vulnerability and trust.
Through our participation in the workgroup meetings and our personal experiences leading SEA research teams, we’ve identified four key elements SEA research leads need to make evidence work for students:
Each Other
Many nonprofits, philanthropic and public organizations regularly convene state education leaders to foster cross-state learning. Rarely do these convenings intentionally bring SEA research leads together, as part of a broader SEA’s representative team, let alone for the express purpose of engaging with research leads from other states.
Beyond a few notable exceptions —Harvard’s Strategic Data Project, Association for Education Finance Policy, NNERPP’s Annual Forum — education research organizations aren’t intentionally designed to bring together research and practice. At a traditional education research conference, an SEA research lead may connect with peers serendipitously during the afternoon coffee break, but these interactions are often sporadic and fleeting.
Yet it is the intentional connection to peers that SEA research leads crave most. No one else understands the pressures and joys of what it’s like to be a director of research at a state education agency.
Leadership Support for a Culture of Learning
Research is, by nature, a radical and risky business, especially in the highly politicized world of education. Research relies on being willing to question everything, allow that we might be wrong about our assumptions, listen to others and change. None of this is built into the DNA of a government bureaucracy and all of it opens SEA leaders up to criticism or worse.
A solitary research lead, buried in an SEA’s organizational structure, can struggle to build a robust research ecosystem that effectively contributes to decision making.
Data, research, and evidence will only be consistently valued and used by an SEA if leadership at the very top — State Chiefs, Deputy Chiefs and the like — have:
Created a culture of learning, where questions are encouraged and failure is seen as an opportunity to learn; and
Established direct lines of communication and support between the research lead and the SEA’s executive leadership team.
Proximity to Districts, Schools, Teachers, Students, and Families
During the State Education Fellowship, Fellows worked with the Proximity Project to think critically about the importance of engaging directly and regularly with the students and teachers SEAs are meant to serve.
For proximity to become a core component of the research process, SEA leaders must recognize that research excluding student and educator voices will be limited in impact.
In addition, SEA research leads need:
Training and support to engage in equitable research practices, of which proximity is foundational; and
Opportunities to engage district, school, teacher, and student leaders throughout the research process — from agenda-setting to acting upon research results.
An SEA can collect all the data in the world, but if they do not have the capacity to make sense of that data and act upon it, what’s the point?
A New Definition of Infrastructure
The ALI Coalition defines R&D infrastructure as encompassing modern data systems, collaborative partnerships, dedicated resources, and human capacity, including knowledge, skills, leadership, and supportive policies.
This definition resonates with SEA research leads because it acknowledges what many of them feel in their bones — that their SEAs are data-rich but information-poor. An SEA can collect all the data in the world, but if they do not have the capacity to make sense of that data and act upon it, what’s the point?
Organizations like the Data Quality Campaign and SETDA advocate for modernizing states’ longitudinal data systems. SEA research leads also need support for the latter part of the ALI definition of infrastructure — philanthropies and non-profits willing to speak up for, fund, and lead human capacity development opportunities at the SEA level, specifically focused on research (e.g., fellowships, SEA research playbooks).
To maximize the impact of education R&D at the state level, SEAs must prioritize strong leadership, dedicated staff, robust infrastructure, and a culture of innovation. By addressing these key areas, we can empower SEA research leads to drive meaningful educational improvement.
Dr. Heather Boughton is the Director of Education Policy Implementation at Results for America and former Director of Research, Evaluation and Advanced Analytics at the Ohio Department of Education.
Dr. Jeni Corn is the Director of Impact Evaluation and Strategy at NC Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill and former Director of Research and Evaluation at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.