Frederick M. Hess 
When Research Matters [PDF ebook] 
How Scholarship Influences Education Policy

When Research Matters considers the complex and crucially important relationship between education research and policy.In examining how and under what conditions research affects education policy, the book focuses on a number of critical issues: the history of the federal role in education policy; the evolving nature of educational policy research; the role of research in debates about reading, NCLB, and ’;out-of-field’ teaching; how research affects policy by shaping public opinion, judicial rulings, and the decisions of district and school leaders; and the incentives that help explain the behavior of researchers and policymakers.