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'Scientifically Based' Giving Way to 'Development,' 'Innovation'

If “scientifically based evidence” was the rallying cry for education research over the past eight years, the watchwords for the field in the post-Bush era seem headed toward “development” and “innovation.”

A growing number of foundations, entrepreneurs, national education groups, and public officials have called in recent months for a stepped-up emphasis on generating findings, programs, and products that practitioners find useful and that will help revolutionize the way America does school.

If it takes hold, the new focus represents a break from the “scientifically based” research push, which called for investing more heavily, but not exclusively, in rigorous studies in which participants are randomly assigned to either control or experimental groups, with the aim of generating new, more credible, knowledge on “what works” to improve student achievement. A focus on development and innovation, in comparison, would mean often recycling existing knowledge, and, in some cases, old-fashioned practical know-how, into new,...