A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

From the ASSISTANT SECRETARY

One of the great pleasure of my job at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement is to see how, as we face challenge after challenge, we get stronger as an organization. Our first challenge was to "reinvent" ourselves-to create what the Congress intended-including a set of five new institutes capable of responding to the urgent need for new knowledge while maintaining the highest standards for the quality and reliability of that knowledge. We have now named five permanent directors for those Institutes.

Our next major challenge was to work with the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board to construct the first National Educational Priorities Plan that will guide our work into the next millennium. We have worked to ensure that the plan-which will be published early next year-reflects the comments, concerns, and thoughtful suggestions received from thousands of people across the country-people who are vitally interested in the critical role that well-designed research, development, and dissemination can play for the schools and classrooms of tomorrow.

The Board has identified and recommended eight priority areas for future educational research funding. These areas are:

• strengthening schools, with particular focus on middle and high schools, as institutions capable of motivating young people to be engaged learners;

• strengthening the teaching force by expanding the potential teacher pool, improving teacher preservice and in-service education, and promoting lifelong self-imporvement;

• improving teaching, curriculum, assessment, and student learning;

• supporting schools and colleges in preparing culturally diverse populations for American economic, social, and civic life;

• understanding the factors required for adult competence in civic, work, and social contexts and how they affect learning and thenation's economic future;

• promoting learning in informal settings, as well as in school; and

• improving learning and development in early childhood.

The Priorities Plan reflects a rising awareness nationwide that the quality of our educational system will critically influence our future. The concerns of the public reflect an unease about that future-many are worried that their children will not be well equipped in the increasingly competitive, globally linked job market. I believe that the kinds of investments that the plan calls for will make a difference as we work to create the classrooms for the next century. Here at OERI, through the recent Challenge Grants for Technology in Education (see Calendar on page 5 and Grants on page 9), we're already getting a sense of what those classrooms will look like and what we need to do to prepare for teaching and learning in the next millennium. From these grants, we will gather a wide variety of important new insights about education, such as what types of learning take place when students are able to create multimedia presentations and make them available over the Internet, when students work with local area universities and museums to do on-line research, and when programs promote a whole host of other exciting, innovative work.

This is an exciting time to be in education-everywhere there is a sense of new possibility, particularly as people realize that our children will spend most of their lives in the new century and are being educated for jobs that have yet to be created. They will be the first generation to realize the truth of the prase "learning never ends," as the demands grow for continuous learning. OERI is now better prepared than ever to meet the new demands. Our ED Online Library is a good example of how we're meeting needs in a changing technological environment. It continues to be consistently rated as one of the best education resources on the Internet. Last year use of our on-line services quadrupled with more than 2.2 million "hits" logged from more than 120,000 computers in 95 countries. Through the on-line library, more than 25,000 of our most important files-publications, statistics, research findings-are open for the entire world to read.

As we constantly work to provide data in more usable formats, we would like to hear from you about what is working and whether we are succeeding in meeting your needs. In government, as in private industry, we must know your needs. All of us at OERI look forward to meeting your expectations-our number one challenge as we approach the next century.

[From Promise to Practice]

[Geography Updated]