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In Memory of Professor Robert E. Slavin 

Alan C. K. Cheung 

OBERT E. SLAVIN, a world-recognized education researcher, passed 

away on April 24, 2021. The unfortunate death of Professor Slavin was 

a great loss for the global educational research, especially for our journal. 

Holding positions as a research scientist, the first-ever Distinguished 

Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, and director of the 

Johns Hopkins Center for Research, and Reform in Education, Dr. Slavin 

sought to translate the science of learning into effective teaching practices 

(Myers, 2021). Professor Slavin was among the earliest researchers working 

on cooperative learning, an approach through which small teams of students 

with different academic abilities work together (Roberts, 2021). These are 

now used throughout the world 

As the preeminent researcher in the field of education, he always con-

centrated on the up-to-date education issues, devoting himself to the journey 

of promoting better education to the students in need. “What most studies 

show is that mixed-ability grouping doesn’t hurt high-achieving students and 

in fact helps those of lower achievement levels,” Dr. Slavin told The New 

York Times in 1990 (Smothers, 1990). 

Professor Slavin was the chief expert of the School of Education at 

Johns Hopkins University. He led the College of Education and achieved 

first place in the National Education College Rankings (2014-2016). Profes-

sor Slavin was the top-ten influential scholar in the field of education re-

search in the United States. He has published more than 300 articles and two 

dozen books, exploring topics including classroom organization, school de-

segregation, cooperative learning, and evidence-based reform, and has made 

outstanding contributions to educational research and public service (Smith, 

2021). 

Professor Slavin is perhaps the world’s most effective advocate for us-

ing evidence as a basis for educational policy and practice. He has published 

dozens of reviews of research on effective practices in elementary and sec- 

 

 

 
 

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R 



 

Vol.8, No.1, 2021 1018 

ondary reading, writing, mathematics, science, and early childhood education 

(see www.bestevidence.org), and has written widely on methodology for re-

search review. To make evidence on educational effectiveness available to 

all, he founded two free websites for educators and researchers, the Best Evi-

dence Encyclopedia (www.evidenceforessa.org) (mostly for researchers) and 

Evidence for ESSA (www.evidenceforessa.org) (mostly for educators). He 

also wrote weekly blogs on evidence-based reform in education, and distrib-

uted a bi-weekly online summary of recent research and policy developments, 

i.e., Best Evidence in Brief (BEiB). 

Meanwhile, Professor Slavin also contributed to the establishment of the 

corresponding platform supported by the Institute for Effective Education 

(IEE) at the University of York in the U.K. (http://www.beib.org.uk/), and 

the Centre for University & School Partnership at the Chinese University of 

Hong Kong in China (https://cuspbeb.com/). During his visit to China in 

2018, he signed cooperation with the School of Education of Nanjing Normal 

University to establish the simplified Chinese version of the education evi-

dence-based research “Best Evidence in Brief” and served as the director of 

the editorial board (http://www.cnbeb.org.cn:81/en/). In the form of a “news-

letter”, it has built a bridge for the exchanges between the world and China in 

the field of evidence-based research in education (Li & Yao, 2018). These 

platforms provide convenient results of the optimum evidence-based research 

results, so as to help worldwide educational scholars with professional sup-

port better improve the current evidence-based education (Slavin et al., 2021). 

The educational research achievements of Professor Slavin were the 

valuable fortune of the world educational research, in memory of his remark-

able achievements, in order to inherit his research results, and for the further 

development of the evidence-based research, we hereby published the “Pro-

fessor Slavin and the development of evidence-based education in China” 

and “Success for All: Professor Slavin and the improvement of evidence-

based schools and its enlightenment to China” written by the editorial board 

members (Yao, 2021) and (Zhou & Gu, 2021), respectively. Affected by the 

limitations such as time, these articles could be insufficient in structure and 

methods, but it will not have any impact on the memory of Professor Slavin 

or lower the quality of the journal. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References 

Li, M., & Yao, J. (2018). Professor R. E. Slavin from Johns Hopkins Univer-

sity visited our school. Nanjing Normal University. [Chinese] Re-

trieved May 19, 2021, from 

http://www.njnu.edu.cn/info/1038/8578.htm  

www.bestevidence.org
www.evidenceforessa.org
www.evidenceforessa.org
http://www.beib.org.uk/
https://cuspbeb.com/
http://www.cnbeb.org.cn:81/en/
http://www.njnu.edu.cn/info/1038/8578.htm


 

Vol.8, No.1, 2021 1019 

Myers, A. (2021). Robert Slavin, global authority on education research and 

evidence-based school reform, dies at 70. Hub at Johns Hopkins. Re-

trieved May 18, 2021, from https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/04/26/robert-

slavin-obituary/  

Roberts, S. (2021). Robert Slavin, who studied how children learn, dies at 70. 

The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2021, from 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/education/robert-slavin-

dead.html  

Slavin, R., Cheung, A., & Zhuang, T. (2021). How does evidence-driven ed-

ucation reform promote education development. Journal of East Chi-

na Normal University (Education Science Edition), 2021, 39(3):14-22. 

[Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.16382/j.cnki.1000-

5560.2021.03.002  

Smith, H. (2021). Robert Slavin, whose reading program is used in schools 

nationwide, dies at 70. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2021, 

from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-slavin-

dead/2021/04/28/275a5792-a7aa-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html  

Smothers, R. (1990). THE NATION: In pupil ‘Tracks,’ many see a means of 

resegregation. The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2021, from 

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/18/weekinreview/the-nation-in-

pupil-tracks-many-see-a-means-of-resegregation.html  

Yao, J. (2021). Professor Slavin and the development of evidence-based edu-

cation in China. Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 8(1):1021-1028. 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.21.or30  

Zhou, L., & Gu, H. (2021). Success for all: Professor Slavin and the im-

provement of evidence-based schools and its enlightenment to China. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 8(1):1029-1040. DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.21.or35  
 

Correspondence to:  

Alan C. K. Cheung, Ph.D. 

Department Chairperson and Professor 

Department of Educational Administration and Policy 

The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

Hong Kong 999077 

China 
Email: alancheung@cuhk.edu.hk 

 

 
Conflict of Interests: None. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.21.e008 

https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/04/26/robert-slavin-obituary/
https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/04/26/robert-slavin-obituary/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/education/robert-slavin-dead.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/education/robert-slavin-dead.html
https://doi.org/10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2021.03.002
https://doi.org/10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2021.03.002
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-slavin-dead/2021/04/28/275a5792-a7aa-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-slavin-dead/2021/04/28/275a5792-a7aa-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/18/weekinreview/the-nation-in-pupil-tracks-many-see-a-means-of-resegregation.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/18/weekinreview/the-nation-in-pupil-tracks-many-see-a-means-of-resegregation.html
https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.21.or30
https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.21.or35

