The Gadfly has buzzed repeatedly about pending legislation to reorganize the federal government's education research, statistics, assessment and evaluation functions. This week, the U.S. Senate put the finishing legislative touches on H.R. 3801, the "Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002." (It followed an interesting parliamentary course, with the final version being worked out between staff negotiators for the two houses before the Senate even passed it.) No doubt a high-visibility signing ceremony lies ahead at the White House.
This bill contains some good news for those (ourselves included) who have been concerned about the precarious independence of the federal statistics and National Assessment functions. Though there are still ambiguous spots where the director of the new Institute of Education Sciences - the umbrella organization that replaces the extant Office of Educational Research and Improvement - may be able to meddle and mold what goes on in the statistics and NAEP domains (via his control of peer review and publication review procedures and such like), the bill also gives some needed protections to the Commissioner of Education Statistics and the National Assessment Governing Board. It does not, however, tidy up the latter's longstanding statutory problems and, in the end, is only a little bit better than current law for NAEP and NCES.
Perhaps the most important thing the bill does is shift responsibility for program evaluation from the Secretary's office to the new Institute. However, one of the negotiators' last decisions placed that key function in the same sub-unit as the regional labs and the ERIC clearinghouses, a schizophrenic bureaucratic creation called the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. (If this were a restaurant, it would probably specialize in salsa and cheesecake.) It's hard to imagine how this can work well.
In the end, Congress surrendered to the existing labs, the university-based research centers, the ERIC clearinghouses, and a motley crew of regional technical assistance centers. Which is to say, those who have been eating the research shop's lunch these past several decades will continue to do so. That leaves very little loose change for "real" research, despite much fancy language in this bill about scientifically based research. While the Institute director (who will be Russ Whitehurst for the foreseeable future) and its new National Board for Education Sciences will no doubt have big and probably good ideas about important directions for education research, it's far from clear that they'll have either the resources or the bureaucratic running room to implement them.
Progress in Washington is usually measured in inches. This time you need a microscope to see it.
