November 2014

The U.S. Department of Education is seeking public input on what the most pressing education policy and practice questions are and how finding answers to them could give educators, parents, and local, state, and federal governments the information needed to make significant improvements in education. The department’s goal is to support the development of rigorous and relevant findings to inform education practice and policy.

Specifically, the department is seeking public feedback on four questions:

• What are the most critical P–12 questions that are still unanswered?
  
  
• How could answering these questions provide information that could be used by schools, districts, and states to improve student outcomes for all students and/or particular groups of students?
  
  
• What type of study could answer these questions and produce findings that are reliable and generalizable?
  
  
• What implications would these findings have for existing practices, policies, and federal programs? Please mention the specific practices, policies, and programs by name, if possible.

Submissions can be posted either publicly on the comments section of the department’s blog or sent by email to [email protected]. The deadline to submit is December 1, 2014. Because the department will consider all feedback to be informal input, it will not provide formal responses to submitted ideas. AERA members who submit comments to the department should also send their comments to [email protected].

To learn more, see the post titled “Investing in Evidence: Funding Game-Changing Evaluations“ on the department’s blog.