“…Scientific empiricism operates within a historical context, but it also operates in the context of politics and policy throughout that history (Gallagher, 2002;Greene & McShane, 2018;Loveless, 2021;Ravitch, 2000;Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Much of U.S. education policy is largely driven by values and politics (Greene & McShane, 2018;Ravitch, 2000) rather than by the use of evidence (Bogenschneider & Corbett, 2021;Tseng, 2012). At the same time, there is a large influence of economists in the academic field of education policy focused on the largely economics-focused approach to reasoning using efficiency, counterfactuals, and forward causal inference (Bellemare, 2022;Berman, 2022), particularly randomized controlled trials and other econometric tools that can mimic them (Schlotter et al, 2011;Singer, 2019).…”