Help Move Education Forward (and me)

Over the past several weeks, the blog has been quiet.  In part, that’s because I have a new son and am thoroughly enjoying being a father.  It’s also because I’m at a bit of a crossroads with my doctoral research and hitting a bit of a wall.

In the past, I had expected fully to be writing a dissertation about new literacies and how they relate to the teaching of English, literature especially.  I’m not so sure about that now.  While I do think such a study is important, there are other aspects of education that have begun to intrigue me.  This is greatly due to the new work I’ve begun this year in NYC’s iZone initiative. 

Since beginning the new job, I have become increasingly aware of the way in which educational research does and does not affect how policy makers go about reform.  This gap between scholarship and schools fascinates me.  How does the way educational researchers represent their ideas affect how those ideas are realized in schools?  I wish to spend the next week with this question.  I’ll be posting snippets from some writing I’m doing that begins to grapple with this question.

And I’m asking for any insights and ideas you may have regarding what is needed in the fields of reform and educational research.