Linking Research to Public Interest

As part of its mission to “promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good,” AERA has enlisted the expertise of its members to provide comment on Supreme Court cases and federal legislation to support this mission.

Amicus Briefs

AERA has provided scientific evidence in legal briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in cases involving social justice in education.

• Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2012):  Amicus Brief Brings Education Research to Bear in Major Affirmative Action Case. 
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (2006): Both cases, ruled on jointly by the Supreme Court, focused on district policies encouraging integration that allowed for race to be used as a “tiebreaker” for public choice of high schools in Seattle and as a factor in determining elementary school assignments in Louisville.
• Grutter v. Bollinger (2003): Challenge of University of Michigan Law School admissions policy that the plaintiff unsuccessfully argued gave applicants from underrepresented minority groups a greater likelihood of being accepted than white applicants.
• Gratz v. Bollinger (2003): Challenge of University of Michigan undergraduate admissions policy that allocated a certain number of points to applicants from underrepresented minority groups.

ESEA Reauthorization

The use of student test scores for teacher evaluations is included in the House bill to reauthorize Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and is a required component for receiving grants in the Teacher Incentive Fund in the proposed Senate ESEA reauthorization bill. Teacher and principal evaluations systems are also required for states receiving waivers to the current No Child Left Behind Act.

To guide policy in this area, AERA and the National Academy of Education (NAEd) held a Hill briefing, “Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: A Challenge for Policy Makers,” on September 14, 2011 that profiled research on value added modeling (VAM) and its use in teacher evaluations. Speakers included Edward Haertel (Stanford), Jesse Rothstein (University of California - Berkeley), Audrey Amrein-Beardsley (Arizona State University), and Linda Darling-Hammond (Stanford).