Policy assessments must be based on the most appropriate data sets. Qualitative data is the most appropriate data set in educational research.

Interactions abound in education. Those interactions create a complex matrix of issues affecting education effectiveness: class, gender, and learning style all impact learning but those variables also interact with classroom environment and peer group issues. Education is a process of communication, communication between the learner and his or her environment. The teacher is only one part of that student's environment. Qualitative research allows the ubiquity of interactions to be examined in a scientific framework.

As the accepted processes of educational science change, educational policy will too. The next generation of educators need to pressure their coworkers and community activists to lobby for wholesale changes in the government. Parents must also begin expressing their discontent with No Child Left Behind more vehemently. Until then, scholars of education need to...
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