For those tracking Washington's handling of federal education research, statistics and assessment (you can find previous Gadfly commentaries on this subject at http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=66#983 and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=64#932), be aware that yesterday the Senate education committee endorsed a revised version of S. 2969, which overhauls the existing Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) and which must now be reconciled with the House-adopted version, H.R. 3801.
With one big exception, the Senate bill is a modest improvement over the House version. The exception is that perennial consumer of federal education research dollars, the regional labs. The House had sensibly removed them from the revamped research office and placed them under the Education Secretary, while requiring more competition for their contracts. If the labs - now 37 years old and not wearing well - belong anywhere, it's within the Department's new "innovation" office, which is meant to handle "school improvement" efforts. But that's not what the Senate did. Rather, it concocted a position (inside the new research unit) with the Orwellian title of "Commissioner for Knowledge Utilization" and entrusted him/her with the labs' care and feeding. Moreover, instead of telling the labs to focus laser-like on helping states and districts comply with No Child Left Behind, the Senate bill leaves them pretty much in charge of their own fates. We must therefore expect more of the same: wasted money, dashed hopes and another missed opportunity to clean up this mess.
Where the Senate bill is somewhat superior is in its handling of statistics and assessment. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and its commissioner gained some needed independence. And the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) got a bit more protection, too, with its governing board's jurisdiction clarified. Until the 11th hour, it looked as if the board would also be entrusted with the release of NAEP results, a key function that for years has been ambiguously shared among governing board, statistics commissioner and Education Secretary, giving rise to endless conflict and the biding risk of politicizing NAEP reports.
The board is where that authority squarely belongs if NAEP results are to have the public trust they deserve. But White House lawyers were said to be furious at the prospect that issuing federal data reports - in this case NAEP reports - would be delegated to an "independent" board rather than a Presidential appointee. There were murmurs of "separation of powers" issues, even hints of a veto. And, at the very last minute, Senators were prevailed upon to reduce the board's role to "overseeing" the reporting function, thus maintaining the present murky mess. It's a damn shame. NAEP results belong to the public, not the executive branch, and Congress should assign their reporting to an independent board (whose members, not so incidentally, are appointed by the Secretary of Education, who is appointed by the President.)
As this bill heads for the Senate floor and then maybe to conference with the House - nobody knows whether it can make it through the remaining hoops before the 107th Congress limps to an end - it's high time for legislation that boosts NAEP's independence and strengthens its governing board. The Education Department is meddling more than ever before in the pre-publication vetting of NAEP data, even the selection of the board's next executive director. Some recent appointees to the board itself, though indisputably able individuals, enjoy close ties to the White House and the Department. While everybody knows that NAEP results are of consuming importance to the Bush administration, they must recognize that they can damage this vital national barometer by clutching it too tightly to their bosom - and that in this sensitive domain, appearances matter as much as reality. If they're blind to this at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Congress should directly address the matter of NAEP independence, because there's a compelling national interest in its lasting credibility - more important than ever due to NAEP's key role as monitor of educational progress under NCLB.
Both bills have one good thing in common: they transfer responsibility for program evaluation from the Secretary's office to the new research unit, which is dubbed the Academy of Education Sciences in the House version, the Institute of Education Sciences in the Senate version. What's less clear is whether the new Institute/Academy will itself have any real autonomy. Both measures contain ambiguous language that seems to say such vital functions as grants, contracts, personnel and public affairs will remain squarely within the Education Department bureaucracy. If that's so, the new entity could be called the EMPIRE of Education Sciences but its presumptive emperor, Grover (Russ) Whitehurst, won't have any more power than he does as assistant secretary for OERI.
Watch this space.