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The Forum on the Future of Public Education

The Forum on the Future of Public Education strives to bring the best empirical evidence to policymakers and the public.

The Forum draws on a network of premier scholars to create, interpret, and disseminate credible information on key questions facing P-20 education. The Forum pursues original research and facilitates collaboration between researchers and policymakers to examine the pressing issues shaping the future of public education. Key constituencies of the Forum include scholars who influence research, policy and practice; policy makers and policy making bodies at all levels; members of the media who influence public opinion; foundations, organizations, business groups and others who support, criticize and advocate for reform; and citizens who make choices about education for themselves and their children.

America is witnessing a drastic redefinition of the policies and practices associated with “public education.” Too often, discussions around the future of public education are strong on passion but short on actual evidence. The Forum for the Future of Public Education is filing that gap by building a resource of objective, research-based insights on key educational issues. We are establishing an open venue- a true public forum to debate controversial and consequential policy issues that will shape American’s future.

Latest News

EPS 508-Fall 2016

by Chris Higgins / Jun 28, 2016

EPS 508 • Fall 2016

Uses and Abuses of Educational Research

W 4-6:50 • 389 Education

Professor Chris Higgins (crh4@illinois.edu)

 

All graduate students in education (if not all citizens) need to be able to engage intelligently with the full spectrum of educational research and with the policies said to be backed by research. This course aims at comprehensive and critical research literacy through discussion of the philosophy of inquiry, the sociology of knowledge, the history of educational research, and the politics of data. It seeks to correct the mystification that there is a recipe for research (question + lit review + method + limitations + theoretical framework + data = new knowledge), reopening some of the thorny questions around writing and interpretation, history and language, power and politics, knowledge and ignorance. It features a comparative case study of public education as refracted by four approaches: historical, philosophical, quantitative, and qualitative.