Congress is currently considering legislation that would update how the federal government funds education research and development. A new federal report reveals significant room for improvement in the way Washington funds education research and development (R&D). The Obama-era $1 billion program showed little improvement in student outcomes.
From 2010 to 2016, the Department of Education spent $1.4 billion on research and development initiatives through the Investing in Innovation (i3) program. The program was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed in the first year of the Obama administration. The plan was to provide grants to school districts, universities, and nonprofit organizations to create or expand innovative educational interventions and to evaluate those models to identify best practices that could be implemented across the country.
At the time, this was a plausible theory of change for improving the return on investment from federal education research and development spending. Over the past half century, the federal government has funded research aimed at identifying best practices that can be implemented in the classroom. However, evidence-based practices identified through research are often ignored by public school districts and the schools of education that train America's teachers. A tragic example of this trend is the many school districts that have ignored the overwhelming evidence supporting the science of reading over the past two decades.
Rather than simply funding academic research and expecting teachers to learn from it, the i3 program tests and actually scales up promising interventions aimed at supporting student learning. was established for. The Department of Education awarded 172 grants for $1.4 billion in programs from 2010 to 2016. In 2015, Congress replaced this program with the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program. The program has a similar mission and has since received $1.2 billion in funding. 2017.
The i3 and EIR programs are based on rational strategies, but as I argued in 2022, they need to be evaluated to determine whether they are effective and benefiting students. Now, eight years after the i3 program ended, the National Center for Educational Evaluation (NCEE) has released a review of the program's impact. Key findings include:
[F]A number of strategies implemented by grantees and subsequently evaluated for improved student outcomes at grantee sites. While 68% of all i3 evaluations (101 grants) found that instructional strategies were implemented with sufficient fidelity, at least one statistically significant positive impact was identified and students Only 26% of i3 evaluations (39 grants) showed no negative impact on
Discussing this result in more detail, the NCEE evaluation found that the majority of successful grants that improved student outcomes were “scale-ups” of interventions that had “prior evidence of effectiveness in other regions.” Or it turns out it was focused on “validation”. Only 15 “development” grants to test unproven approaches had a positive impact. In other words, even though the Department of Education spent more than his $1 billion, he could only find 15 new initiatives that would benefit students.
This report includes a useful summary of questions that policymakers should consider drawing from these lessons, including how the department should develop appropriate strategies for awarding grants. These include whether the level of rigor of the research was appropriate. “Learning about and learning from these programs is critical to realizing their full potential and ensuring students receive the benefits they desperately need,” the report wisely concludes. .
These findings should prompt several other questions to be asked of Congress. First, why did it take eight years to review this $1.4 billion research and development plan? Second, why did the National Center for Educational Evaluation report show that the funded system improved student achievement? Do you not list or specifically identify both projects and non-projects? Third, if the i3 program has had little positive results, what value is Congress getting from his $284 million annual spending on the EIR program?
Indeed, beyond implementing oversight, Congress has an opportunity to reform federal education research and development programs. In December, the Senate Support Committee passed a bill to update the Education and Science Reform Act, the primary federal law that oversees federal education research and development activities (although it includes the $284 million EIR program mentioned above). are not included). The bipartisan bill's prospects for consideration in the Senate are uncertain.
However, the House Education and Workforce Committee should consider its own approach to reforming federal education research and development programs like EIR. At the very least, the House should provide oversight to increase transparency into how billions of tax dollars are being spent. Federal spending on research and development projects will not help children if the results of these projects, both good and bad, are not made public in a timely manner and shared with those who can implement best practices. not.
Without Congressional reauthorization, Congressional appropriators could demand more transparency about federal education research and development programs. The Biden administration's fiscal year 2025 budget proposes flat funding for the EIR program in fiscal year 2025 and modest budget cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences, the federal government's independent education and research agency. Congress could include accompanying reporting language in annual funding bills to require more transparency about the outcomes of education research and development projects. It will also provide the Institute of Education Sciences with more resources and autonomy to continue pursuing the DARPA-like model that Director Mark Schneider is calling for to develop tools that can help teachers and students across the country. You can do it. Lawmakers should also require the Government Accountability Office's oversight body to review the effectiveness and management of these programs.
As educational options continue to expand in states across the country (20 million children are now eligible for private school choice programs), parents have more power than ever to find the right learning environment for their children. Requires Congress and the Department of Education to share lessons learned, both good and bad, from federally funded research to identify better ways to help America's children learn. There is an obligation.