R&D budgets of NIE and OERI, the report pointed out, declined by 82 percent (in constant dollars) between 1973 and 1989. The research arm also needs to be protected from being highly politicized. The 1992 report suggested a number of structural changes intended to help buffer OERI, including the creation of the policy board referred to in the above question. Perhaps the most salient recommendation, however, was to make the directorship of OERI a non-partisan, six-year appointment (OERI assistant secretaries have turned over on average every 18 months). Stability of leadership would not only advance the goal of insulating the research program from political pressure, it would make possible the development of a research program with focus and clarity of purpose. The combination of a non-partisan, six-year term for the OERI director, the IERI, and SERP all working together would create a very powerful way for the public and private sectors to focus on the highest priority research questions. Strengthening the OERI directorship would give the Department of Education the authority it needs to be a full partner in the triumvirate of federal agencies in the IERI and in the partnership with the private sector that will be SERP's comparative advantage. WHAT MIGHT BE DONE TO IMPROVE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION?* Maris A. Vinovskis Department of History, Testimony presented before the U.S. House of Representatives, Science Subcommittee on Basic Research on "Education Research. Is What We Don't Know Hurting our Children?” ' October 26, 1999 * This statement is based in part on my two recent essays: (1) "Missing in Practice? Systematic Development and Rigorous Program Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Education,” paper delivered at Conference on Evaluation of Educational Policies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, May 13-14, 1999; and (2) "Restructuring the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) and Enhancing the Federal Role in Educational Research and Development,” paper delivered at the Brookings Institution's Conference on the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Washington, DC, May 17-18, 1999. revised version of the second paper will be forthcoming in Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 2000, ed. Diane Ravitch. A 1 My name is Maris Vinovskis and I am the Bentley Professor of History and a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research as well as a Professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I was also the Research Advisor to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in 1992 and 1993 and thus have had the privilege to work with both the Bush and Clinton Administrations. I will submit for the record a copy of the two essays upon which much of this testimony is based and will briefly summarize my main points for the Committees now. The federal government has been collecting, analyzing and disseminating educational statistics for more than 130 years. Over time the focus has shifted from data gathering to emphasis on research and development in order to find more effective ways of educating children at the state and local levels. But the quality of work in educational research and development has varied greatly. As a result, educational research and development usually has not been held in high esteem by most academics and policy makers in the twentieth century. The need for federal involvement in educational research, development, and statistics has increased today. Analysts and policy makers are slowly and reluctantly acknowledging that many of the basic federal compensatory education programs established in the 1960's are not as effective as we had hoped. Large-scale, popular federal educational initiatives such as Title I and Head Start probably do offer some assistance for many disadvantaged students. But these programs have not provided the same educational opportunities for at-risk children as for their more fortunate counterparts. Many of these federal initiatives are really only general funding mechanisms rather than specific programs proven to be particularly effective for helping children who live in more impoverished homes and neighborhoods. Nor do we have enough sufficiently detailed and reliable statistical information about our schools to help educators formulate better policy alternatives. As a result, there is a growing need for better educational research, development, and statistics to improve education and schooling for everyone. A major problem with educational research and evaluation is that some of it has not been high quality 2 scholarship; academics in the other behavioral and social science disciplines frequently regard educational research and evaluation as second-rate methodologically and conceptually. The low opinion of the quality of much of educational research and development is also shared by many policy makers who consider the work sponsored by NSF or NIH generally to be more rigorous and scientifically sound than that produced by first by the National Institute of Education (NIE) and then by its successor, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Similarly, the quantity and quality of program evaluations by the Office of Planning and Evaluation Service (PES) have not always been regarded as satisfactory during the past 15 years. One of the serious limitations of educational research and evaluations has been the lack of adequate funding and I certainly favor allocating additional monies--as long as those dollars will be spent wisely and effectively. Yet the lack of money by itself cannot account for the problems we face in the field of education research and evaluation today. While the monies, devoted to research and development have never been adequate, substantial funds (in constant 1996 dollars) have been spent on the R&D centers and the regional educational laboratories from FY64 through FY98: $1.16 billion for the centers and $1.59 billion for the labs. And some large-scale educational research and development projects such as Follow Through initiated in the late 1960's have cost several billion dollars--though the results have been quite disappointing substantively and methodologically. There are at least nine shortcomings or limitations in the current educational research and evaluation efforts in the Department of Education: (1) While OERI has received much more money since the late 1980's, increasingly it has been spent on activities other than research and development. For example, in FY97 approximately the same amount of money was being spent by OERI on new educational technology projects as was spent on the traditional centers, labs, field-initiated research, and ERIC combined. (2) Congressional mandates on how OERI must spend its research and development funds continue to hamper the ability of the agency to operate efficiently and effectively. Rather than allowing the agency to decide how to distribute its own resources in order to achieve 3 the general goals set forth by the legislators, a few members of Congress since the mid-1970s have allied themselves with some of the largest beneficiaries of those federal contracts and mandated how much of the federal educational research and development funds must be spent. (3) Federal involvement in educational research, development, and statistics has often suffered from unstable and weak intellectual leadership. There have been some outstanding and distinguished leaders in NIE and OERI. But there have also been individuals appointed whose credentials were based more on their political experience than on their distinguished educational and research achievements. Moreover, OERI has been plagued by rapid turnover in its top management and has not provided the necessary intellectual leadership for the field of educational research and development. (4) Since 1992 OERI's staff has been cut by 25 percent and the agency lacks an adequate number of distinguished and innovative researchers. (5) Large-scale, systematic development is largely absent at OERI. Many of the research and development projects at the R&D centers and the regional educational laboratories continue to be too small and uncoordinated; and the scientific quality of some of the existing developmental work leaves considerable room for improvement. (6) Neither the Planning and Evaluation Service (PES) nor OERI are providing a sufficient number of scientifically sound and educationally relevant program evaluations to provide educators and policy makers with the information they need. Currently PES has the primary responsibility for conducting program evaluations. But given its limited funding and preoccupation with numerous short-term assignments, PES has not been able to produce many scientifically-sound program evaluations. (7) While there has been a welcome expansion of field-initiated studies at OERI, more should be done to focus and coordinate some of these endeavors in order to make them more useful to educators and policy makers. |