The extended school day in Israel: Do research findings really matter

In Israel, most of the education research projects are initiated by policy makers at the Ministry of Education. One of these research projects dealt with the proposal to lengthen the school day by 2 hours. The Knesset approved the proposal even though scholars and officials in the Ministry of Education opposed it. This article provides an account of how this happened and the relationship between research and its use or nonuse by policy makers.