Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The conference theme for this address, “Engaging the Education Ecosystem to Improve Research Relevance and Use,” speaks to a core challenge we face as researchers: ensuring that our work is both meaningful and applicable in real-world settings. Frequently, however, our research is only relevant to the outliers—elite/high-performing or underperforming institutions and students—at the expense of the majority in between the two extremes. These “middle” institutions and students represent a significant portion of the total K–12 and postsecondary education landscape, yet their unique challenges are underrepresented in the research.In this address, I call for an expanded focus on the middle—students who perform adequately but not exceptionally, and institutions that serve large, often overlooked populations. A review of articles from the past six years of Education Finance and Policy (volumes 14–19) reveals that just over a third are relevant to the range of students and institutions that are not at the performance extremes,1 much fewer than expected given the size of the middle.2 As Amy Ellen Schwartz emphasizes in her 2009 presidential address, “the key to making education policy research matter is asking questions that matter” (Schwartz 2010, p. 2). Building on this idea, I urge us to produce research with direct, practical relevance for the middle-tier of students and institutions that are vital to improving educational equity and outcomes across the board.The “Forgotten Middle” is a concept that Swanson aptly describes as: the silent majority—the kids who come to school regularly, sit in the back of the class, rarely say anything, don't cause trouble, and get by with C's. They are not failing, nor are they the math whiz or star pupil. They are nearly invisible. Their parents and teachers are content that they are making it through and no alarm bells are going off. They constitute a large part of the middle two quartiles of students. They'll graduate, but won't be prepared for college. And many of them will wander around for years in dead-end jobs. (Swanson 2005)I work at the City University of New York (CUNY) as the Senior Dean of the Office of Applied Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics. I mention where I work because it is important context for my message today. My office is one of the increasingly prevalent research shops embedded in a practice setting. Those who work in my office are what Carrie Conaway calls brokers or boundary spanners and Dan Goldhaber calls golden unicorns: people who work in a policy or practice setting who understand, translate, and transmit research to practitioners (Conaway 2020; Goldhaber 2018). And I would add, vice versa—we also translate practitioner needs into research questions. Depending how you operationalize the term, these hybrid researchers represent approximately 30 percent of AEFP's membership.3 Many of us are called on regularly to make recommendations to policy makers and practitioners based on the best available evidence, and the best evidence is relevant to the context and needs of our institutions and students. I have attended AEFP representing CUNY for the past 15 years. I look for research I can take back to CUNY to improve student outcomes. Ninety-nine percent of CUNY students are commuter students, and if you set aside several of our selective colleges with low acceptance rates, the majority of our 25 institutions largely educate the students who performed just fine in high school—not outstanding, not failing. Despite their numbers, these students and institutions are too infrequently the focus of research, limiting our ability to identify evidence-based strategies to support them effectively.While some research addresses the middle, more is needed. Based on a normal distribution, roughly 68 percent of students fall within one standard deviation from the mean, yet only 34 percent of recent research in Education Finance and Policy (EFP) is relevant to this group. I am looking for more research relevant to this large segment of students and institutions in the middle.Carrie Conaway's 2020 essay in EFP provides insight into the underutilization of research in policy making: “The research on research use is clear: If we want research to matter for policy, we need to devote resources to building relationships and strengthening organizational practices in service of building organizations that learn” (Conaway 2020, p. 2). I propose a third factor to encourage evidence use: research relevance. Practitioners must see their institutions and students reflected in the research for it to be impactful, especially in organizations already committed to research-informed decision making. Even in sophisticated organizations that are intentional about their use of research in decision making—and have staff and resources dedicated to that activity (Penuel et al. 2015; Conaway 2020)—research must still be relevant to have an impact.When interventions designed for high or low performers are broadly applied without evidence of effectiveness for the middle, this misapplication of interventions can hinder rather than help overall educational progress. For example, Loveless (2008) argues that pushing average students into advanced courses without proper support can be detrimental. He emphasizes the value of considering the needs of average-performing students, as they are often negatively affected by blanket policies, such as those pushing for early algebra enrollment without addressing readiness.Similarly, Hanushek (2019) explores long-term trends in socioeconomic achievement gaps, noting that interventions focused solely on low performers have not been enough to close the gaps between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. He points out that even when low-income students are not the lowest performers, they still often fall behind their higher income peers. To elevate overall performance, we must implement strategies that address the distinct needs of average and above-average students from disadvantaged backgrounds, tailoring educational interventions to support a wider range of learners. Quinn and Kim (2017) suggest combining fidelity-focused approaches to replicating or scaling RCT results with structured adaptation to enhance relevance to local contexts without sacrificing rigor, but that adaptation must be informed by additional relevant research.A lack of focused attention on average students can let them slip through the cracks, leading to stagnation in their academic growth, missed opportunities for enrichment, and potential disengagement from learning. When institutions in the middle range of performance are overlooked, they risk stagnation in development, missed opportunities for program improvement, and potential disengagement from innovation. Today's average student could become tomorrow's dropout. Today's average institution may become tomorrow's struggling school. These are the students who might not get identified by early alert systems, and these are the institutions that might not get flagged by accountability systems. To support meaningful and equitable educational progress, it is vital to extend our attention beyond the highest and lowest performers, ensuring that students and institutions in the middle are not left behind.I ask each of you to consider the middle—not just as a category, but as a significant, often overlooked segment of our educational system. The middle is where many of our nation's students live, learn, and strive, facing challenges that, although perhaps less visible or urgent than those at the extremes, are no less deserving of our attention. Addressing their needs is essential not only for advancing educational equity but also for realizing the broader, systemic improvements that can lift all institutions and students.As researchers, we have an opportunity to make a profound impact by shifting our focus beyond the top and bottom tiers and broadening our lens to include this critical middle ground. This shift will require us to think differently about our study populations, research questions, methods, and interventions. By doing so, we can generate insights that are directly relevant to the many institutions, students, and practitioners who seek meaningful, applicable evidence to guide their work.Let us commit to producing research that is representative and actionable, research that resonates with the majority of our educational ecosystem. By focusing on the middle, we can create a more inclusive, equitable foundation for improvement that aligns with AEFP's mission and our shared vision of a robust and responsive education system.
Source: Education Finance and Policy
DOI: 10.1162/edfp_a_00440
Author: Colin Chellman
Institution: City University of New York
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4409247528