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Statement by
Ricky Takai
Acting Assistant Secretary
Office of Education Research and Improvement
Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee
on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education
on the
Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Request
for the Office of Education Research and Improvement
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the President's fiscal year 1999 budget request for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI).
We are requesting a total of $935.4 million, an increase of $344.9 million over the 1998 level, which would support the programs and activities in the Education Research, Statistics, and Improvement account, as well as educational technology programs in the Education Reform account administered by OERI. These latter programs do not include the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund.
To assure its contribution to the goals and objectives of the Department, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement has developed indicators of effectiveness and detailed measures of performance for each of its ongoing programs. For our research, development, and dissemination programs, we have developed standards and procedures for peer reviewers to assess the performance of grantees and contractors, as required by the OERI statute. They set out criteria by which peer reviewers are to judge the significance, quality, and potential for impact of OERI-supported work. The standards are in the final stages of public review and will be revised, if necessary, and submitted for approval by the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board within the next several months. In general, we are in the process of collecting baseline data on most of our programs.
Mr. Chairman, we are requesting selected increases in 1999 for major OERI activities. For our other programs and activities, we are requesting continued funding at the 1998 levels.
In March of 1997, the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued a report about using technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. The report was prepared by the Committee's Panel on Educational Technology, but surprisingly the Panel did not confine its recommendations regarding research to research on learning technologies. Instead, the Panel decried the "dramatic underfunding" of education research in general and recommended that the Federal investment be increased over the next few years to $1.5 billion annually. The Panel compared education with the pharmaceutical industry. In 1995, 23 percent of the $70 billion spent in this country on prescription and non-prescription medications was spent on drug development and testing. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the $300 billion spent on K-12 education was spent "to determine what educational techniques actually work, and to find ways to improve them." No other knowledge-based industry spends so little on research and development, according to the Panel. In addition to recommending more research on various educationally relevant technologies, the Panel recommended major increases in basic research in learning-related disciplines.
The $50 million increase we have requested would support a research effort undertaken in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and other appropriate agencies. We intend to involve scientists from a wide range of disciplines in this research effort, and a partnership with these two agencies would help us do that. We intend to look at their models and methodologies, the ways they go about designing and supporting research, and the types of research teams and efforts they support.
Research from other disciplines offers great promise in addressing major problems in education. For example, this initiative would bring together the best minds from a wide range of disciplines to consider how recent findings from cognitive science can be translated into classroom strategies and how new technologies can change the way children learn and teachers teach. Our focus would be learning outcomes of children. In order to assure the greatest impact, we would target our effort on a limited set of major problem areas, specifically improving teaching and students' acquisition of reading and mathematics skills, using innovations in technology to improve teaching and learning, and examining how brain research and advances in cognitive science can lead to improvements in instructional strategies.
A detailed plan for the use of these funds will be developed over the next several months in cooperation with NSF and NICHD and in consultation with scientists and scholars from a variety of fields, such as cognitive psychology and computer science, as well as researchers and practitioners from the education community. However, we can cite examples of the kinds of questions that will undoubtedly be included in the agenda. For example, the very recent report of the National Research Council (NRC), entitled Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, puts forth many important recommendations regarding reading. Many of these recommendations are things that should be widely implemented now, because they rest on sound scientific footing. But the report also recommends an extensive agenda for further research in reading, and it recommends that research toward increasing the efficacy of classroom reading instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades be the number one funding priority.
NICHD researchers have demonstrated success with various strategies implemented in controlled, experimental situations. We need to explore how those strategies might be implemented in regular classroom settings. What would be the result, and what modifications might be necessary? What are the best approaches for training and helping teachers use research-based knowledge and strategies in their teaching? Or taking from the recommendations of the NRC report, through what means can word recognition and comprehension development be coordinated so that they develop more efficiently? What kinds of knowledge and material support do classroom teachers need for greatest effectiveness? In what ways might successful methods for teaching primary language literacy be adjusted to facilitate the transition to successful English literacy?
In the area of mathematics, we might start with what we have seen in the results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). We need to know why U.S. students seem to fall farther and farther behind students in other countries as they advance through K-12 education. What can we learn about structuring mathematics instruction from the way the curriculum is integrated in other countries? How should we organize mathematics teaching and learning so that talented students are not discouraged from taking more and more advanced courses in mathematics? What are the best curriculum and instructional strategies for middle grade mathematics? What approaches will ensure that teachers will have the content knowledge and teaching strategies necessary to enable students to become successful mathematics learners?
In the area of learning technologies, we must work with NSF, and perhaps other agencies as well, to set out an agenda to address two of the PCAST recommendations, one for early research aimed at developing new forms of educational software and new instructional strategies made possible by technology and the other for empirical studies designed to determine which approaches to the use of technology are in fact most effective.
Reliable data on the condition of education in America are essential. We need to know how much American children are learning, what progress they are making and where they stand compared to other students around the world, how well educational reforms are working, what new challenges the educational system is facing, and so forth. NCES has an excellent reputation for providing the Nation with accurate information gathered from large-scale surveys and assessments.
The funding requested for 1999 would support our core data collection, analysis, and reporting activities and continue to provide the public and policymakers with reliable data, while the increase would permit some new activities or additions to ongoing collections. For example, the increase would support a birth cohort in the early childhood longitudinal study so that we have available important information about the development of children in their earliest, preschool years. The study currently consists of a kindergarten cohort only. The increase would also allow us to make a repeat administration of the eighth grade TIMSS mathematics test available in 1999 to those States and districts that want to use it to benchmark the performance of their students with the performance of students around the world. We would launch a new national adult literacy survey, which would follow up on a survey conducted 10 years earlier, in order to have information about literacy levels among the adult population. And we would undertake a one-time special analysis project leading to a year 2000 report on education.
The increase we are requesting for the National Assessment of Educational Progress would support data collection, analysis, and reporting activities, as well as activities of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). NAEP provides the only nationally representative indicator of what our children know and can do and is one of the best measures of student achievement and progress in national education improvement efforts. The funding would allow for analyzing and reporting the results of the 1998 assessments of reading, writing, and civics and for preparing for the year 2000 assessments of mathematics, science, and reading. Funds would also be used to support the evaluation of NAEP and to implement a set of enhancements incorporated in the NAEP redesign plan approved by NAGB. Funds for NAGB would support its duties related to both NAEP and the voluntary national tests of fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics.
We are requesting an increase of $26.7 million, for a total of $50 million, for Eisenhower Professional Development Federal Activities, which support teacher preparation required to help all students master demanding subject matter in the core academic disciplines. We propose a particular emphasis this year on improving mathematics instruction. The results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) point to the critical importance of improving mathematics learning, especially in the middle grades. Doing so is one of the strategic priorities of the Department of Education, and following the release of the eighth grade results from TIMSS, the President directed the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to develop an action strategy for improving mathematics and science achievement. The increase in funding requested for Eisenhower would support our efforts to implement the action strategy and mobilize a national effort to improve mathematics instruction in elementary and middle schools. Funds would be targeted in three areas: district planning for improved professional development in mathematics through better leveraging of existing local, State, and Federal funds; training teachers and administrators to lead professional development improvement efforts in their schools and districts; and developing effective professional development models and materials. We would also increase funding of the National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education Materials to support the development and delivery of professional development material, primarily for middle school teachers. In addition to these efforts, we propose to increase funding of the 10 Eisenhower Regional Mathematics and Science Education Consortia by $10 million to permit each consortium to provide more technical assistance and disseminate more information and resources related to the action strategy.
Of these funds, we are requesting $75 million for a new competition that would focus on preparing new and prospective teachers to use technology effectively in the classroom. Given the number of new teachers who will be needed over the next decade, we must begin now to develop the strategies that will ensure that these new teachers come to classrooms prepared to help students learn with technology. We expect to support a variety of strategies to improve teachers' preparation, including summer institutes, teacher mentoring programs, postsecondary faculty development, and development of certification standards for ensuring proficiency in technology. Additionally, the 1999 competition for the Technology Innovation Challenge Grants program would continue the 1998 focus on strategies for inservice professional development in the effective use of educational technology. These grants bring together local school districts with State agencies, institutions of higher education, and private sector technology companies. No increase in funding is requested for this competition.
Our request for 1999 also includes $10 million for a new competition to support community-based technology centers. Grants would be used to establish computer learning centers in low-income communities, which would provide access to technology for disadvantaged students and adults unable to purchase computers for use at home. Equitable access to technology is critical as computers and connectivity rapidly become an essential part of education and the workplace. According to PCAST, as of June 1995, computers were present in 73 percent of homes with incomes over $50,000, compared to only 14 percent of homes with incomes of less than $30,000.
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