CEPR Faculty Director Thomas Kane discusses ways to put education research to work in this article from Education Next.
In the half century since James Coleman and his colleagues first documented racial gaps in student achievement, education researchers have done little to help close those gaps. Often, it seems we are content to recapitulate Coleman’s findings. Every two years, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (a misnomer, as it turns out) reports the same disparities in achievement by race and ethnicity. We have debated endlessly and fruitlessly in our seminar rooms and academic journals about the effects of poverty, neighborhoods, and schools on these disparities. Meanwhile, the labor market metes out increasingly harsh punishments to each new cohort of students to emerge from our schools underprepared.
At the dawn of the War on Poverty, it was necessary for Coleman and his colleagues to document and describe the racial gaps in achievement they were intending to address. Five decades later, more description is unnecessary. The research community must find new ways to support state and local leaders as they seek solutions.
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