Ohio’s Department of Education is one of the leading state agencies in the U.S. in terms of its focus on helping and encouraging school leaders to use evidence-based educational strategies and supports. For the past almost four years, Dr. Heather Boughton (@hrosemaryb) helped lead those efforts. She’s the former director of the Office of Research, Evaluation & Advanced Analytics within the Department. She served in the department for almost 13 years before starting a new role last month as Director of Education Policy Implementation at Results for America.
In our interview, she discusses the mission of her former office and then provides three pieces of advice based on her experience: 1) Use evidence to create a cycle of continuous improvement; 2) Understand that using evidence can be messy; and 3) See the use of evidence as a team effort. She also provides advice for state education departments that are earlier on the path to doing this type of work.