Kirk Knestis PhD – Evaluand LLC

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) has been a key influence on my professional work as an education researcher and program evaluator. This was mostly through an accident of timing, as NCLB came to be just as I was finishing my PhD and starting the most recent of my several careers. Reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, NCLB was best known to the public for the emphasis it placed on standardized testing of K-12 students. However, the aspect of the Act that arguably most drove the everyday efforts of people studying education programs has been the expectation that teaching and learning innovations be studied using rigorous research methods akin to those applied in medical fields.

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