This web-site is about Practice-Based Inquiry®, (PBI) a new tool of inquiry that works in providing rigorous assessments of how well schools are performing. PBI supports a new way of thinking about school and teacher accountability for the learning our schools provide our children and young people. It is based on old traditions of inquiry and shaped to meet modern expectations of rigor. It has been tested for 12 years in over 1,000 American public schools and is ready to implement throughout the nation.
The pilot work in over 350 public schools in Rhode Island and Chicago shows that while Practice-Based Inquiry surprises because of its assumptions about evidence and professional judgment, it has proved to be a good answer to many of the dilemmas in assessing how well schools provide good learning. The key is that PBI generates evidence and constructs conclusions about the quality of what actually happens in each school’s classrooms. PBI conclusions are surprisingly effective in stimulating teachers, parents and principals to see what they are doing well and poorly and to then find way to make it better.
On top of these amazing benefits, Practice-Based Inquiry also provokes researchers to think about the assumptions they make about what you have to do to assure valid inquiry findings. Finally it provokes the thinking of researchers, policy makers and school intervention professionals to rethink what is necessary to be accountable to the public for assuring that schools are effectively responsive to student learning and deserve continued public support. This web-site is a store-house of information about Practice- Based Inquiry. Leave your e-mail address and we will keep you informed.
