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At the Evidence Resource Center, we aim to help Pennsylvania’s school communities thoughtfully apply high-quality, relevant research to their own settings. Explore these topics to brush up on research basics, ESSA tiers, and the fundamentals of evidence-based decision making.

Roadmap

Where we're headed

The ERC maintains an annual roadmap to share the topic areas it will seek to expand with additional strategies in the next 12 months.

At the midpoint of each calendar year, the ERC assesses whether any additional programs and practices should be reviewed based on new priorities identified by Pennsylvania education stakeholders and/or new information about approaches that could benefit Pennsylvania students. If new priorities are sufficiently important, the ERC might postpone reviews of previously prioritized programs and practices to review the new ones.

To promote transparency about its ongoing and planned work, the ERC will post an annual and mid-year update to its research roadmap here.

ERC Process

Explore these documents to see the ERC's research process, study review methods, prioritization schemes and communication practices.

Your input matters

The ERC seeks to engage all Pennsylvania educators in identifying priority topics for evidence reviews. The ERC uses educators’ input about the topic areas where evidence reviews are needed (for example, school attendance or literacy programs) and their recommendations for specific strategies to review.

The ERC conducts regular outreach to Pennsylvania educators through: (1) presentations and feedback sessions at state conferences, (2) outreach to professional associations and leadership groups of educators in the Commonwealth, (3) discussions with teams assisting PA schools identified for improvement.

The ERC uses this information to identify topic areas and strategies of interest to educators and to assess the amount of interest in each.

Pennsylvania Education Stakeholders: Nominate a Strategy

Pennsylvania stakeholders can nominate a strategy for review using the link below. For each nomination, we ask that you describe the strategy and why it is of interest to you, and that you identify any relevant research studies the ERC should consider. We will also ask for your contact information, your role in your school community, and any affiliations you might have to the strategy or its research.

Nominated strategies are considered for inclusion in the next ERC annual roadmap. A strategy may be added to the roadmap the year it is nominated if resources allow and if the ERC determines that the strategy represents a novel approach, could meet an urgent education need, and/or demonstrates exceptionally strong impacts on student outcomes.

Nominate a Strategy

Strategy Developers and Vendors: Nominate a Strategy

The ERC welcomes nominations from program developers and vendors. To be considered, the nomination must include a citation for at least one study that the strategy developer or vendor believes meets research quality criteria for ESSA evidence tiers I, II, III, or IV. The study must meet the ERC study eligibility criteria as described in the relevant ERC topic area protocol.

Strategies nominated by developers and vendors will be considered for inclusion in the next ERC annual roadmap. The strategy may be added to the roadmap the year it is nominated if resources allow and if the ERC researchers determine that the strategy represents a novel approach, could meet an urgent education need, and/or demonstrates exceptionally strong impacts on student outcomes.