Fast-Response Research to Answer Practice and Policy Questions

Research-practice partnerships often face a fundamental tension: well-designed, high-quality research takes time, but practitioners and policy makers need answers to pressing questions as soon as possible. In this article, Jason Sachs, Meghan McCormick, JoAnn Hsueh, and Catherine Snow discuss this mismatch between the tight timelines of educational decision makers and the typically longer timelines of researchers who are pursuing rigorous analyses. They tell us how, in a partnership between researchers and the Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood, they’ve worked to make fast-turnaround research as rigorous as they can, while also conducting longer-term causal studies.

The Future of Children would like to thank the Foundation for Child Development, the Spencer
Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and Cynthia King Vance for their generous
support.

• Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership