Third Education Group

Welcome to the Third Education Group (TEG). Third Education Group focuses on issues in education research. TEG grows out of a belief that policy decisions in education should reflect the best research available. Too often, however, research in education policy is really advocacy research aimed at supporting already determined policy positions.

The group’s name reflects our determination to remain independent of the currently dominant education camps.

While we expect TEG to evolve, it currently consists of several parts:

• Reviews of research on education policy issues.
• Book reviews.
• The Third Education Group Review, a peer-reviewed on-line journal.
• The TEG blog, with short updates.

We welcome your participation, which can run the range from from suggestions of research we should include in our reviews to submissions of papers for publication in the TEG Review.

What do we mean by education policy research? We define it mainly in terms of audience: is it useful to school board members, legislators, administrators and voters in making their decisions? There is often a fuzzy line between what would be useful to this audience and what might better fit a publication aimed at a different audience. For example, questions of the accuracy and consistency of value-added models in evaluating teachers are certainly of concern for those involved with education policy, but research aimed at technical improvements in the models might fit publications aimed at other researchers. Likewise, the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs are of great interest to policy makers; the details of the curriculum might not be.