As the author of "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices," I want to extend my sincere thanks to Jim Hewitt and Nidhi Sachdeva for so powerfully building upon the foundation I laid 25 years ago. Their recent essay breathes new life into those early assertions, transforming them into a well-reasoned, deeply researched, and urgently relevant call to action for 2025 and beyond.
What makes their contribution so impactful is not only the clarity of their critique but the depth of their scholarship. They draw upon a rich body of research accumulated over the past quarter-century—research that strengthens their arguments and makes their recommendations both timely and essential. I could easily point to a dozen or more ways in which they integrate these findings to illuminate the path forward for education reform.
As they so compellingly argue, while evidence-based professions have driven remarkable progress in fields like medicine and engineering over the past 50 years, education has seen only modest gains—particularly reflected in the stagnation of NAEP scores. Their analysis underscores the urgent need to bring the same rigor and accountability to education.
It is precisely this kind of evidence-driven advocacy that inspired Kelly Butler, Reid Lyon, Linda Diamond, and me to launch the Evidence Advocacy Center. Jim and Nidhi’s work exemplifies the mission we envisioned: to empower educators with the tools, knowledge, and support they need to drive meaningful improvements in student achievement.
I am in total agreement but why is almost all of the education research behind paywalls?
So often (started life as a scientist) I'm reading research or looking into the research cited but can't access more than an abstract. It is so frustrating.
I regret that the standard way to publish educational research (and research in most disciplines) is via businesses (i.e., journals) that seek compensation for access to the publications. There is an effort by some to promote "open science," one pillar of which is open access. The Center for Open Science is a good source for more information about the efforts.
In addition, some journals are adopting open access policies. In special education an example is Research in Special Education from the Alethia Society https://aletheia-society.org
I should note, though you probably know this, that authors (the researchers) do not get rich from the fees that publishers charge for access to the research reports. The authors may gain in academic reputation from the publications, but they don't get paid royalties as they would for, say, a book. In fact, journal publishers charge literally $1000s to authors that want their articles be freely accessible.
There are sites that seek to circumvent the closed access system. ResearchGate and Academia are a couple of them.
But, in answer to your question about why research is behind paywalls, I offer this simple explanation: $$.
JohnL
p.s. If you can't get access to an article on which I'm an author, write to me directly. I can send you a copy.
I love what you're saying here and it's exciting to think about the potential to improve instruction and student academic success through the science of learning. However, I wonder about some of the newer instructonal approaches that our schools adopt, such as The Thinking Classroom and UDL. I feel quite sure that if I read a book promoting these approaches, there would be pages devoted to how this new approach has proven positive student outcomes; it would APPEAR to be scientifically-based with the support of scientific research. I think I would find it difficult to determine if the research was rigorous or the results were correctly interpreted. Teachers will need to be instructed on how to look at research claims with a critical eye; as a 30+ year teacher, I'm pretty sure I don't have the knowledge, skills or time to assess the veracity or validity of research claims. Preferably, school boards would have teams that fact-check each "new" initiative before teachers implement them.
For example, for The Thinking Classroom, A.I. stated that:
"The 14 practices [of the Thinking Classroom approach] are a result of extensive research in mathematics classrooms, aimed at addressing the issue of students not actively thinking during lessons."
As a teacher looking for a way to improve student learning in Math class, that might sound pretty good to me. How are we to distinguish "good" or correct research from weak research?
In addition to the good points made in the other responses to your comment, I encourage you to read Doug Carnine's comment and follow the links he provided to the project he and Linda Diamond (among many others) are creating on making evidence about effectiveness accessible. For ease, here's a link:
And the AI is picking its words carefully! To its credit, its a bit unclear what “extensive” research actually means. I could spend 10 years doing “extensive” research of a very low quality. As for the Thinking Classrooms research—they were not high-grade, well-designed studies. Small samples, lots of anecdotal evidence, and lacking some clarity in what they were actually measuring! And as for UDL, there simply isn't compelling evidence of it working well at the whole class level.
You make a great point. I don’t think many teachers have the skills to look at research critically, and I’m not sure they are open to learning about it, as a whole. Certainly some would be, but not a lot in my opinion. I think where the change can start is in teacher education programs as the authors suggest!
I love your idea about a team that fact checks initiatives. I’d love if the Ministry of Education did that, but they almost do the complete opposite. They actually promote Building Thinking Classrooms and celebrate the approach on the curriculum website! I find it deeply disappointing.
The philosophical baggage underpinning this post needs to be unpacked and revised. All knowledge comes in the form of belief. The content of belief is either true or false, and separate from that some beliefs are well-evidenced and some are not.
Belief-based is all anything is at bottom, whether it's based on evidence or not. You should call it fad-based or tradition-based or insular or something else. Data collection, data structure, and data analysis all leave room for personal bias.
If we're going to elevate educational practice, it has to start with clearer thinking.
Thanks, Josh. I agree that we all have beliefs. We use those beliefs to make decisions about our teaching. The point we could have stated more clearly in our post is that there’s a difference between having beliefs and being a belief-based profession.
We see a belief-based profession as one where personal convictions and preferences are not regularly held up to scrutiny against external scientific evidence. There are many reasons why this might happen. In some cases, people distrust science. They might prefer their own beliefs to findings that come from research. It’s also true (as several teachers in this discussion have pointed out) that it is really difficult for teachers to access and interpret the science in the first place. Either way, the result is the same: a culture in which there are fewer opportunities to have one’s beliefs challenged by research evidence, and where there’s little systemic pressure to revise or discard ineffective practices.
A science-based profession, on the other hand, is one where the members of that profession are able to access and interpret the science and are willing to entertain new beliefs. It encourages a mindset of critical inquiry, where practices are refined over time, informed by what evidence suggests is effective, not just what feels right.
I agree that science isn’t immune to bias. But what gives science its strength is its processes for detecting and correcting bias, like replication, peer review, and transparent methods. That’s the kind of culture we think education needs to move toward: one where teachers are better empowered to question and refine their beliefs based on the best available evidence.
They should distrust science. Science never moves anywhere if you don't distrust it, and it would proliferate every folkish trope in education without distrust for it -- it has often tried, and the methods we consider robust now were often once gatekept and resisted by scientists before.
Yes, distrust and skepticism is what we teach our students. It is interesting official reports from Project Follow Through give a very different narrative about DI compared to this article, eg Anderson (1977):
"QUESTION 2: DID FOLOW THROUGH RAISE POOR CHILDREN'S TEST SCORES?
If Follow Through didn't close the disadvantage gap entirely, did it at least
narrow it? Did Follow Through children score better than they would
have without the program?"
Results reported were, only 1 out of 16 DI sites did this for spelling, only 4/16 for reading & 5/16 for Maths.
Anderson reports, DI sites reached "this heroic level of performance with only a minority of its groups... Follow Through has not proved they can do it consistently."
Rather than the uncritical promotion of DI we should be asking why did DI succeed so well in some sites but not others?
Amen amen amen. Amen and amen. without subjecting specific practices to rigorous testing and experimentation and making choices based on evidence of learners’ behaviors, we’re just flying blind. This has been going on for my entire life and it’s so refreshing to see you two raising this flag again. science-based inquiry is more crucial than ever as AI is merging into every aspect of our lives.
Moving education to be more science-based will require a fundamental reexamination of basic theoretical assumptions education is based on. I'm writing about this with regards to literacy education on my own Substack, so please check it out as I would appreciate your opinion.
Thank you for writing such an interesting article!
Three decades ago our state government instigated a department to review and evaluate effectiveness of teaching initiatives and practices in public schools. It only lasted a few years - basically the election cycle. A different political party won the next election and disbanded the review unit. The problem, as one person working in the unit said to me, was that no one in the school system actually liked or wanted that particular level of scrutiny. The system doesn't want evidence. An education system that doesn't want evidence isn't really in the business of educating.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve worked in schools where research based strategies are implemented but a problem often is that all classrooms and all students need to do it.
As a system we need to explore these research based strategies but then let the individual classroom teacher choose what works best for their class and their students. I think this is a huge issue which puts a lot of teachers off using these strategies and then into just what works best for them.
I agree with the premise of this article. One of the biggest barriers is that district leaders DO use terms like “evidence-based” and “supported by research” all the time to justify the next shiny program or policy they implement. However, 2 minutes or 2 years later, they’ve abandoned program/policy (A) and moved on to the next shiny thing (B), which is sometimes in direct opposition to its predecessor, but also research-based. What is most infuriating for teachers, especially veteran teachers, is the that teachers may have been advocating for B the entire time the district leadership insisted A was better. Then as soon as the tide shifts… Boom, now it’s B. Any of us that were trained in science or research know that results must be replicated under various conditions and that this takes TIME. District leadership should take care to understand that trust is built with respect to time and that applies to the implementation of programs and policies as well.
So true, Yvonne. And don't forget, "data-driven." But it all depends on what evidence/research/data is used, isn't it? If you use bad data or incomplete evidence, then you can say your approach is supported by research but the research is flawed. Additionally, there is a chasm between the "ivory tower of academia" and the "trenches of the public school." There needs to be more communication between teachers and researchers, fewer paywalls on the research, and teachers need more time to read the research--or cut to the chase and get the training on what the researchers have figured out are better methods.
The official reports show DI did well on average compared to programs within Project Follow Through (PFL) but when compared with similarly disadvantaged students outside PFL & National Norms, DI did not fare so well: only 1 out of 16 DI sites did this for spelling, only 4/16 for reading & 5/16 for Maths.
This shows DI was not the success many claim & there should be discussion about why results varied so much.
Teaching and learning are complicated--like medicine. Even when we know the science, medical diagnoses can be elusive (e.g. see the New York Times reoccurring articles "Diagnosis" https://www.nytimes.com/column/diagnosis). So I hear your skepticism about teaching as science. Teaching is many things. It ought to be based on science, I think. But because we are dealing with human beings--children--we ought to implement the science artfully. More here: https://laurenbrownoned.substack.com/p/teaching-as-_____-art-science-business
Fascinating argument. I’m curious about how might gender play a role in all this? Teaching has long been a women-dominated profession. Could that be part of why it's been treated as intuitive rather than scientific?
As the author of "Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices," I want to extend my sincere thanks to Jim Hewitt and Nidhi Sachdeva for so powerfully building upon the foundation I laid 25 years ago. Their recent essay breathes new life into those early assertions, transforming them into a well-reasoned, deeply researched, and urgently relevant call to action for 2025 and beyond.
What makes their contribution so impactful is not only the clarity of their critique but the depth of their scholarship. They draw upon a rich body of research accumulated over the past quarter-century—research that strengthens their arguments and makes their recommendations both timely and essential. I could easily point to a dozen or more ways in which they integrate these findings to illuminate the path forward for education reform.
As they so compellingly argue, while evidence-based professions have driven remarkable progress in fields like medicine and engineering over the past 50 years, education has seen only modest gains—particularly reflected in the stagnation of NAEP scores. Their analysis underscores the urgent need to bring the same rigor and accountability to education.
It is precisely this kind of evidence-driven advocacy that inspired Kelly Butler, Reid Lyon, Linda Diamond, and me to launch the Evidence Advocacy Center. Jim and Nidhi’s work exemplifies the mission we envisioned: to empower educators with the tools, knowledge, and support they need to drive meaningful improvements in student achievement.
I am in total agreement but why is almost all of the education research behind paywalls?
So often (started life as a scientist) I'm reading research or looking into the research cited but can't access more than an abstract. It is so frustrating.
Belinda,
I regret that the standard way to publish educational research (and research in most disciplines) is via businesses (i.e., journals) that seek compensation for access to the publications. There is an effort by some to promote "open science," one pillar of which is open access. The Center for Open Science is a good source for more information about the efforts.
In addition, some journals are adopting open access policies. In special education an example is Research in Special Education from the Alethia Society https://aletheia-society.org
I should note, though you probably know this, that authors (the researchers) do not get rich from the fees that publishers charge for access to the research reports. The authors may gain in academic reputation from the publications, but they don't get paid royalties as they would for, say, a book. In fact, journal publishers charge literally $1000s to authors that want their articles be freely accessible.
There are sites that seek to circumvent the closed access system. ResearchGate and Academia are a couple of them.
But, in answer to your question about why research is behind paywalls, I offer this simple explanation: $$.
JohnL
p.s. If you can't get access to an article on which I'm an author, write to me directly. I can send you a copy.
I love what you're saying here and it's exciting to think about the potential to improve instruction and student academic success through the science of learning. However, I wonder about some of the newer instructonal approaches that our schools adopt, such as The Thinking Classroom and UDL. I feel quite sure that if I read a book promoting these approaches, there would be pages devoted to how this new approach has proven positive student outcomes; it would APPEAR to be scientifically-based with the support of scientific research. I think I would find it difficult to determine if the research was rigorous or the results were correctly interpreted. Teachers will need to be instructed on how to look at research claims with a critical eye; as a 30+ year teacher, I'm pretty sure I don't have the knowledge, skills or time to assess the veracity or validity of research claims. Preferably, school boards would have teams that fact-check each "new" initiative before teachers implement them.
For example, for The Thinking Classroom, A.I. stated that:
"The 14 practices [of the Thinking Classroom approach] are a result of extensive research in mathematics classrooms, aimed at addressing the issue of students not actively thinking during lessons."
As a teacher looking for a way to improve student learning in Math class, that might sound pretty good to me. How are we to distinguish "good" or correct research from weak research?
In addition to the good points made in the other responses to your comment, I encourage you to read Doug Carnine's comment and follow the links he provided to the project he and Linda Diamond (among many others) are creating on making evidence about effectiveness accessible. For ease, here's a link:
https://evidenceadvocacycenter.org
Such an important point!
I highly recommend taking a listen to this awesome podcast episode, where two experts address your very question: how can teachers filter through edu-research when there seems to be a study in support of every method! https://open.spotify.com/episode/5cFeZ6J81ASciSLVL3aY5z?si=8-CffPmqRneSRzqlbcuB6Q
And the AI is picking its words carefully! To its credit, its a bit unclear what “extensive” research actually means. I could spend 10 years doing “extensive” research of a very low quality. As for the Thinking Classrooms research—they were not high-grade, well-designed studies. Small samples, lots of anecdotal evidence, and lacking some clarity in what they were actually measuring! And as for UDL, there simply isn't compelling evidence of it working well at the whole class level.
Definitely check out the pod!
You make a great point. I don’t think many teachers have the skills to look at research critically, and I’m not sure they are open to learning about it, as a whole. Certainly some would be, but not a lot in my opinion. I think where the change can start is in teacher education programs as the authors suggest!
I love your idea about a team that fact checks initiatives. I’d love if the Ministry of Education did that, but they almost do the complete opposite. They actually promote Building Thinking Classrooms and celebrate the approach on the curriculum website! I find it deeply disappointing.
The philosophical baggage underpinning this post needs to be unpacked and revised. All knowledge comes in the form of belief. The content of belief is either true or false, and separate from that some beliefs are well-evidenced and some are not.
Belief-based is all anything is at bottom, whether it's based on evidence or not. You should call it fad-based or tradition-based or insular or something else. Data collection, data structure, and data analysis all leave room for personal bias.
If we're going to elevate educational practice, it has to start with clearer thinking.
Thanks, Josh. I agree that we all have beliefs. We use those beliefs to make decisions about our teaching. The point we could have stated more clearly in our post is that there’s a difference between having beliefs and being a belief-based profession.
We see a belief-based profession as one where personal convictions and preferences are not regularly held up to scrutiny against external scientific evidence. There are many reasons why this might happen. In some cases, people distrust science. They might prefer their own beliefs to findings that come from research. It’s also true (as several teachers in this discussion have pointed out) that it is really difficult for teachers to access and interpret the science in the first place. Either way, the result is the same: a culture in which there are fewer opportunities to have one’s beliefs challenged by research evidence, and where there’s little systemic pressure to revise or discard ineffective practices.
A science-based profession, on the other hand, is one where the members of that profession are able to access and interpret the science and are willing to entertain new beliefs. It encourages a mindset of critical inquiry, where practices are refined over time, informed by what evidence suggests is effective, not just what feels right.
I agree that science isn’t immune to bias. But what gives science its strength is its processes for detecting and correcting bias, like replication, peer review, and transparent methods. That’s the kind of culture we think education needs to move toward: one where teachers are better empowered to question and refine their beliefs based on the best available evidence.
Thanks again for your thoughtful post.
They should distrust science. Science never moves anywhere if you don't distrust it, and it would proliferate every folkish trope in education without distrust for it -- it has often tried, and the methods we consider robust now were often once gatekept and resisted by scientists before.
I agree. Skepticism is at the heart of science.
Yes, distrust and skepticism is what we teach our students. It is interesting official reports from Project Follow Through give a very different narrative about DI compared to this article, eg Anderson (1977):
"QUESTION 2: DID FOLOW THROUGH RAISE POOR CHILDREN'S TEST SCORES?
If Follow Through didn't close the disadvantage gap entirely, did it at least
narrow it? Did Follow Through children score better than they would
have without the program?"
Results reported were, only 1 out of 16 DI sites did this for spelling, only 4/16 for reading & 5/16 for Maths.
Anderson reports, DI sites reached "this heroic level of performance with only a minority of its groups... Follow Through has not proved they can do it consistently."
Rather than the uncritical promotion of DI we should be asking why did DI succeed so well in some sites but not others?
What a fabulous article!
Amen amen amen. Amen and amen. without subjecting specific practices to rigorous testing and experimentation and making choices based on evidence of learners’ behaviors, we’re just flying blind. This has been going on for my entire life and it’s so refreshing to see you two raising this flag again. science-based inquiry is more crucial than ever as AI is merging into every aspect of our lives.
Moving education to be more science-based will require a fundamental reexamination of basic theoretical assumptions education is based on. I'm writing about this with regards to literacy education on my own Substack, so please check it out as I would appreciate your opinion.
Thank you for writing such an interesting article!
Three decades ago our state government instigated a department to review and evaluate effectiveness of teaching initiatives and practices in public schools. It only lasted a few years - basically the election cycle. A different political party won the next election and disbanded the review unit. The problem, as one person working in the unit said to me, was that no one in the school system actually liked or wanted that particular level of scrutiny. The system doesn't want evidence. An education system that doesn't want evidence isn't really in the business of educating.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve worked in schools where research based strategies are implemented but a problem often is that all classrooms and all students need to do it.
As a system we need to explore these research based strategies but then let the individual classroom teacher choose what works best for their class and their students. I think this is a huge issue which puts a lot of teachers off using these strategies and then into just what works best for them.
I agree with the premise of this article. One of the biggest barriers is that district leaders DO use terms like “evidence-based” and “supported by research” all the time to justify the next shiny program or policy they implement. However, 2 minutes or 2 years later, they’ve abandoned program/policy (A) and moved on to the next shiny thing (B), which is sometimes in direct opposition to its predecessor, but also research-based. What is most infuriating for teachers, especially veteran teachers, is the that teachers may have been advocating for B the entire time the district leadership insisted A was better. Then as soon as the tide shifts… Boom, now it’s B. Any of us that were trained in science or research know that results must be replicated under various conditions and that this takes TIME. District leadership should take care to understand that trust is built with respect to time and that applies to the implementation of programs and policies as well.
So true, Yvonne. And don't forget, "data-driven." But it all depends on what evidence/research/data is used, isn't it? If you use bad data or incomplete evidence, then you can say your approach is supported by research but the research is flawed. Additionally, there is a chasm between the "ivory tower of academia" and the "trenches of the public school." There needs to be more communication between teachers and researchers, fewer paywalls on the research, and teachers need more time to read the research--or cut to the chase and get the training on what the researchers have figured out are better methods.
Learning can be a science. Not teaching. Never. Direct Instruction is not better than other frameworks.
What evidence can you present to support your claim?
The official reports show DI did well on average compared to programs within Project Follow Through (PFL) but when compared with similarly disadvantaged students outside PFL & National Norms, DI did not fare so well: only 1 out of 16 DI sites did this for spelling, only 4/16 for reading & 5/16 for Maths.
This shows DI was not the success many claim & there should be discussion about why results varied so much.
One of the official reports, Anderson (1977) here - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03626784.1977.11076219
Teaching and learning are complicated--like medicine. Even when we know the science, medical diagnoses can be elusive (e.g. see the New York Times reoccurring articles "Diagnosis" https://www.nytimes.com/column/diagnosis). So I hear your skepticism about teaching as science. Teaching is many things. It ought to be based on science, I think. But because we are dealing with human beings--children--we ought to implement the science artfully. More here: https://laurenbrownoned.substack.com/p/teaching-as-_____-art-science-business
Fascinating argument. I’m curious about how might gender play a role in all this? Teaching has long been a women-dominated profession. Could that be part of why it's been treated as intuitive rather than scientific?