Knowledge Alliance Urges Congress to Increase Funding for Education Research in FY2012

On September 7, 2011 Knowledge Alliance sent a letter to the leaders in the US Senate and House of Representatives urging support for greater investments in education research.See the body of the letter below. Download the House letter here and the Senate letter here.

“On behalf of Knowledge Alliance and the millions of students and teachers served by our members, I am writing to urge your support for sustained investments for education research. Education research provides educators, administrators and policymakers the tools and evidence needed to make informed decisions leading to student improvement and excellence.
As you know, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) promotes the use of instructional practices and innovations supported by research, but the Department of Education spends less than 1% of its budget on research and development (R&D), one of the smallest of any agency (see here). This low level of investment in education R&D means that education is ill equipped to rapidly develop, deliver and scale innovations as is done in other sectors through R&D. The bottom line is that schools and students will suffer without a sustained investment in developing, testing, and using research-based practices.

FY 2012 Appropriations Recommendations

We recommend sustained federal investments in five interrelated programs at the US Department of Education for research-based innovation and improvement in our schools. These programs have reached millions of students across the country enabling pre-K-16 educators at the state, district and school level to make informed, research-based decisions about how best to teach students, what programs are effective and how to help the lowest-performing schools, among many other functions. We urge you to consider five essential and interrelated programs as a research-based school improvement package:

Comprehensive Centers $56.3M (same as FY 2010 enacted)

The Comprehensive Centers provide technical assistance designed to raise the capacity of States to help districts and schools meet the goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), with emphasis on key education reform priorities. Our recommendation includes funding for each Comprehensive Center, which would:

• Enable the comprehensive centers to expand their capacity building work with States in such areas as enabling data-based and evidenced-based decision making, implementing internationally benchmarked college-and career-ready academic standards, improving achievement and high school graduation rates in rural and high need schools, improving the achievement of English Language Learners, and turning around persistently lowest-achieving schools.

To access each Comprehensive Centers work plan, visit

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/newccp/awards.html

Regional Educational Laboratories $70.6M (same as FY 2010 enacted)

The Regional Educational Laboratories (REL) program serves as a necessary bridge between the research community and State (SEAs) and Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) by providing expert advice, including applied research and development projects, to bring the latest and best research into school improvement efforts. Our proposed increase would:

• Expand the RELs’ capacity to support SEAs and LEAs to use their data systems to frame, assess, and act on critical regional education issues.

To access publications and reports published by the RELs, visit

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/relwork/index.asp

Research, Development & Dissemination $260M (same as the President’s request)

This fund supports a diverse portfolio of programs, projects and studies that create, translate, disseminate and/or apply research-based knowledge relevant to school improvement and the implementation of ESEA requirements. Our recommendation would allow funding for:

• More rigorous research projects under existing programs in areas where the knowledge of learning and instruction is inadequate;
• New grants to support impact evaluations of various programs at the federal level;
• Providing supplemental grants to the National Research and Development Centers so they can expand the size or number of rigorous research studies on their designated topics, and for increasing the overall number of Centers.

School Improvement Grants $600M (same as the President’s request)

These grants provide LEAs with significant resources to implement school intervention models in their lowest-performing schools. The funding requested for the School Improvement Grants program would:

• Help build State and local capacity to identify and implement effective interventions to turn around their lowest-performing schools. The proposed increase would create a sustainable base for long-term school improvement efforts.

Investing in Innovation Fund $300M (same as the President’s request)

This program employs a rigorous, three tiered framework that directs the highest level of funding to programs with the strongest evidence, but also provides significant support for promising programs that are willing to undergo rigorous evaluation. Our proposal would:

• Support a newly authorized ESEA program, modeled after the Investing in Innovation program in the ARRA and provide a substantial federal investment for scaling and sustaining evidence-based innovations.

Thank you for your consideration, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or need additional information.

Sincerely,

Jim Kohlmoos
President, Knowledge Alliance

Knowledge Alliance’s mission is to help stimulate innovation and improvement in pre-K-16 education through research-based knowledge. For more information about these programs and the Knowledge Alliance, visit www.knowledgeall.net. “