What does it take to turn research into real-world impact in education?
In this conversation, two scholars from the University of California, Berkeley—Dr. Tolani Britton and Dr. Travis J. Bristol—reflect on the power of education research to shape more equitable policies and improve student outcomes.
Both former high school teachers, Britton and Bristol bring personal experience and rigorous inquiry to urgent questions: How do we retain teachers in schools? What conditions support students both in accessing—and completing—college? How can we build systems that serve all learners?
They explore how thoughtful, data-driven research can help shift the conversation from identifying gaps to designing solutions—and how their work supports educators and policymakers in building a more responsive education system.
Dr. Tolani Britton: What initially drew you to research in education, and how has your focus evolved over time?
Dr. Travis J. Bristol: What initially drew me to research and education was really a wonder about whether we were asking the right questions, whether policymakers were asking the right questions. I became inspired to do research when then-Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, launched the Department of Education's Black male teacher recruitment campaign. And the secretary was interested in recruiting Black men teachers. Because I was a former high school teacher and left the classroom, I wondered about if the focus on recruitment was enough. I wanted to research what it might mean to focus on retention. I was drawn into doing research [by] wondering about if policymakers were indeed asking the right questions or really expanding the questions that they were asking.
What about you, Tolani?
Dr. Britton: I actually started my post-college career in research. I was working for an international research organization, and I was looking at things like public-private partnerships around funding infrastructure. I was looking at questions of immigration, or migration, because of economic conditions in both home and receiving countries. And after doing that work, I returned to the U.S. and became a high school math teacher in a college prep school.
I became a de facto college counselor, and that brought me back to research. When I was both teaching and serving as a college counselor, I thought about how much of my work was individual, but the issues around college access and success for students, many of those issues were actually structural. Working with individuals was really important. But for me, returning to research allowed me to think about the conditions that either enable or constrain our students when thinking not just about how they get to college, but how they get through college.
Dr. Bristol: What do you see as some of the most pressing issues in education today that require a research-driven approach?
Dr. Britton: I think most things require a research-driven approach. Rather than starting with the issue, I think more about the approach. It's really thinking about what is working and when is it not working, and what are the local conditions or resources needed to help improve student outcomes. What about for you?
Dr. Bristol: (I want to) double-click on this idea around what's working for whom and what's working for others. We are a nation that continues to be divided and unequal. So for me in education, I'm interested in trying to understand how access to education leaves certain groups on the margins, and how it keeps certain groups at the center. We know that teachers become one of the most important individual investments—the most important—to improve outcomes for students. And so, I'm interested in trying to understand, what are the conditions in schools that might keep a teacher in the school? What are the conditions that might push a teacher out of the school? How do we organize schools to support teachers to learn in service of students?
Because we are a country that continues to become more ethno-racially diverse, how do we ensure that a diverse workforce—particularly teachers of color—that they have the conditions to stay and thrive and work in their schools? Having a demographically matched teacher has really important positive outcomes for students.
Dr. Britton: One of the strengths of education research is that we're thinking not just about students and the conditions of students, but about the adults who are in classrooms with students, or adults who are in the building, and what are some of the conditions that are both similar and different for adults and students. I'm interested in exploring the training process. When we're thinking about college, it's really how the students move from being students to receiving some sort of training to go out in the labor market. What's striking me about this conversation is we're really thinking about cradle to career in so many ways.
Dr. Bristol: While my work really is situated in the K-12 space, if we believe that schools and college education can become the great equalizer, then understanding how after we set the right conditions in K-12 schools, we also have to ensure that individuals can then access higher education. I think the power of this conversation is that we're really thinking about cradle to career in service of this promise of America. This American project is about allowing individuals who have been on the margins to come to the center … to live out this idea of the American dream.
Dr. Britton: Absolutely. One of the things I'm really thinking about is maximizing opportunities for students to make choices within college about what they want to study. What are the conditions that allow students to enter universities and make choices about what they study, what they major in, whether or not they return to grad school, given what we know about some of the economic returns to these decisions.
Dr. Bristol: How do you define the impact of your research?
Dr. Britton: Part of the way that I am defining impact is whether or not I am helping to answer questions that are pressing right now. An example of that is some of the work that I'm doing with New York City, around understanding the impact of their dual enrollment programs and their Advanced Placement course programs, and whether or not this is increasing the likelihood, not just that students enroll in college but also graduate from college. So that's for me, one very concrete metric. There are questions that cities, states, districts have right now. What about you?
Dr. Bristol: A goal of my research is to give policymakers and practitioners tools to do their own work, to answer questions that they may have had. [I worked on] a project that the Walton Foundation has funded. It looked at the impact of teachers of color in New York City public schools. And we found that when students were matched with a teacher of the same ethno-racial identity, those students were less likely to be suspended in those years that they had a demographically-matched teacher, when compared to years that they did not. For me, it feels like this work is having an impact.
Dr. Britton: In some ways the trajectory of our own work has been moving from the important work of documenting the problem and measuring the problem, to thinking about what solutions exist to some of the problems. And then, are they working? Who or what inspires you to continue pushing forward in this field, despite challenges?
Dr. Bristol: What inspires me is that research can help us become a nation less divided and more equal. Teachers are asking questions, policymakers are asking questions, practitioners are asking questions about … how do we make this country more equal? How do we allow teachers, how do we allow students to move closer to the center? Who or what inspires you?
Dr. Britton: Students, past and present, are part of what inspires me. There are so many questions and the answers matter for students’ experience, not just the students. I recently spoke to one of my former high school students and she is now doing work that is math related. Clearly I was her high school math teacher, and it was just a reminder that things are working. [It] reminds me that there is a reason that we do this work. It is improving outcomes. That’s part of what's hopeful.
Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
