Michigan Department of Education | Strategic Research Agenda

The MDE supports research that helps us implement our Top 10 in 10 Goals, as outlined below. We seek partners who are willing to co-develop and implement research studies that help us achieve these goals.

Goal 1: Provide every child access to an aligned high-quality P-20 system from early childhood to post-secondary attainment—through a multi-stakeholder collaboration with business and industry, labor, and higher education—to maximize lifetime learning and success.

MDE Priority Research Topics:

Understanding the landscape of P-20 programming and opportunities in Michigan LEAs, and how those various pathways relate to student outcomes—academic, whole child, and postsecondary transitions?

With the introduction of the Marshall Plan for Talent, how are we using career pathways as a state and how do those impact student outcomes?

Deeper research into any component of the P-20 system including the early childhood, K-12 and postsecondary programmatic offerings and connection to outcomes.

Goal 2: Implement with strong district and building leadership, high quality instruction in every classroom through a highly-coherent, child-centered instructional model where students meet their self-determined academic and personal goals to their highest potential.

MDE Priority Research Topics:

How can personalized learning approaches and competency-based education help with student outcomes—academic as well as other outcomes of interest?
What instructional approaches best support student learning, with particular attention paid to questions of implementation, scale up, and conditions necessary for success?
Research into strategies, practices, and interventions that best support Michigan’s diverse learner population, including English learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, Michigan’s indigenous students, etc.
How can the MDE leverage social media, social networks, and/or technology to disseminate and share information related to high quality instructional practices in new ways?

Goal 3: Develop, support and sustain a high-quality, prepared and collaborative education workforce.

MDE Priority Research Topics:

Understanding how the educator pipeline is functioning at each stage (recruitment, preparation, certification, placement, mentoring/induction, evaluation and professional learning) and what helps ensure the highest-quality teachers possible in Michigan?
Impact of potential changes to the pipeline
What are some evidence-based recruitment strategies, and which strategies are at the SEA level, the LEA level and elsewhere?

Goal 4: Reduce the impact of high-risk factors, including poverty, and provide equitable resources to meet the needs of all students to ensure that they have access to quality educational opportunities.

MDE Priority Research Topics:

How is our Partnership District model working to turn around low-performing schools and districts?
Studies that provide the MDE with evidence on promising practices related to supporting the needs of the whole child.
Financial equity studies related to school finance.

Goal 5: Ensure that parents/guardians are engaged and supported partners in their child’s education

MDE Priority Research Topics:

Partnerships and studies that test various strategies to increase parental engagement and provide the MDE with information on “what works” in terms of increased parent/guardian engagement and satisfaction.
Partnerships and studies that investigate the relationship between parent/guardian engagement and student outcomes (academic and non-academic/whole child).

Goal 6: Create a strong alignment and partnership with job providers, community colleges and higher education to assure a prepared and quality future workforce, and informed and responsible citizens.

MDE Priority Research Topics:

Research outlined under Goal 1 related to the P-20 pipeline and various student pathways
Research and partnerships that provide evidence about the success of various types of partnerships with job providers, community colleges and higher education.

Goal 7: Further develop an innovative and cohesive state education agency that supports an aligned, coherent education system at all levels (state, ISD, district, and school).

MDE Priority Research Topics:

What types of preparation and training help create SEA leaders and employees who can enact a vision of an innovative and cohesive state education agency?

Programmatic Priority Areas for MDE

We have particular interest in research partnerships that help us with our three priority areas:

Literacy and numeracy
Supporting the whole child
Supporting our youngest learners (prenatal to age 8)

Note: Within those areas, we need to consider policies; student/instructional level programs and interventions or strategies; educator workforce capacity; resources; and barriers to implementation. Those considerations could be impacted by very different types of studies.

Detailed List of Possible Questions

The MDE has a more detailed list of possible questions of interest, prioritized internally. However, this is not a comprehensive list; research partners can and should propose other topics that broadly fit the goals outlined above. The prioritization can also change based on available partners and/or funding—something that is described as “long term” may move to “near future” with the right combination of interest, partners and funding.