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

Washington, DC 20208-7564

Minutes of Quarterly Meeting

March 16, 2000

Location

80 F St. NW, Room 100
Washington, DC 20208-7564

Members Present

Kenji Hakuta, Chair, James E. Bottoms, Jomills H. Braddock, Ann Clark, Edmund Gordon, Paul Goren, Robert Marley, Joyce Muhlestein, Alba Ortiz, Claire Pelton, E. Lea Schelke

Members Absent

Patricia Ann Baltz, John Bruer, Sharon Lynn Kagan, Glenda Lappan

Ex Officio Members Present

C. Kent McGuire, OERI
Dalton Henry, delegate, Office of Indian Education Programs, U.S. Department of the Interior

Designated Federal Official

Thelma Leenhouts

Board Staff Present

Eve M. Bither
Mary Grace Lucier

OERI Staff Present

Sue Betka, Kathy Fitzgerald, David Florio, Sandra Garcia, Peirce Hammond, Harold Himmelfarb, Cheryl Kane, Naomi Karp, Sue Klein, Carole Lacampagne, Eileen O'Brien, Marty Orland, Duc-Le To

U. S. Department of Education Staff Present

Frank S. Holleman III, Deputy Secretary
Cindy Stewart, Office of the General Counsel
Heidi Ramirez

Members of the Public Present

Emerson Elliott, Gerald Sroufe, AERA, Maris Vinovskis, University of Michigan

Chairman Hakuta called the meeting to order at 9 a.m. and reviewed the meeting agenda.

He announced that the Board's executive director, Eve M. Bither, had submitted to the Board a letter indicating her intention to retire as of July 1, 2000. Ms. Bither's letter of resignation was read into the record (see attached). The chair expressed the Board's gratitude for her years of service to the Board and their wishes for an enjoyable retirement.

The Board heard the following reports:

Report of the Assistant Secretary

Assistant Secretary C. Kent McGuire updated the members on the work on the continuations of the research and development centers, on preliminary efforts to establish peer review panels, on his testimony before the Appropriations Committee on the FY 2001 budget, and on progress on work undertaken by the RAND Corporation to plan problem-centered programs of research and development in mathematics and reading education. Additional information was provided on the Interagency Education Research Initiative, a partnership of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Ethics Briefing

Susan Erdeky of the Office of General Counsel provided the annual ethics briefing for the Board.

Report of the Chair

Chairman Hakuta reported on his participation in the meeting in Paris, France, of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Board along with OERI has contributed to the funding for the ICT study of the impact of information and communication technology in the schools. He indicated that he would be participating, along with the executive director, in a panel at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New Orleans in April and encouraged other members to join with them at this event to release the Board's draft policy recommendations on the reauthorization.

Report of the Executive Director

Ms. Bither gave a quarterly budget report; updated the members on the Board-sponsored study evaluating the expert panel review process of promising and exemplary programs (Phase II standards), and discussed her participation, along with the chair, in a meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Group of the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education at the National Research Council.

Action Items

The Board approved the minutes of the quarterly meeting January 20 and 21, 2000, and of a meeting by teleconference on February 22.

The Board approved the form and procedures for the evaluation of the executive director, and accepted with regret and appreciation the resignation of Ms. Bither.

The Board approved the publication of an advertisement in the Commerce Business Daily of a proposed sole source contract with the National Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council (NAS/NRC) to convene a panel and conduct a synthesis study of recent reports on the federal role in educational research.

Discussion Item

Emerson Elliott led a discussion on an update of the Board's 1999 policy recommendations with regard to the federal government's sponsorship of research in education. The consensus reached will form the basis of a report to the Congress on problem-based research and development; appropriate organization, structure, leadership, and dissemination; and the relevance of this new design model to the reauthorization of OERI. The report will be disseminated in draft form at the conference of the American Educational Research Association in New Orleans April 24-28.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:09 p.m.

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This page last modified -- August 8, 2000 (tca)